Our Empty Bond
by Emo-Shukun
Summary: Slight AU. Konoha can't keep the young Uzumaki Naruto, and request the Kazekage to take him. Gaara and Naruto become friends. With the help of the Kazekage brainwashing Naruto as a spare weapon, what else was going to happen? Especially after exams?
1. Chapter 01

**Summary –** It turns out that the Third Hokage could not protect the child of the Fourth Hokage who sacrificed himself by sealing the Kyuubi inside of his own child. The advisors did not want the _abomination_ in their country, leading him to decide on meeting with the Fourth Kazekage to talk about the matter—only for it to be solved. The Wind Country took the boy when he was four years old and brought him to the Fourth Kazekage's son who was the same age, and manages them to manage a bond between the two children containing beasts within them. Now the boy from the Fire Country believes that he has been disowned from the previous country, and does any that he is told to do—not by the Fourth Kazekage, but by the redheaded boy he has grown attached to.

What will happen when they go to the Chuunin Exams? Will old bonds thin and new bonds grow? One child does not agree with it.

**Story & Plot:** © Emo-Shukun  
**Naruto:** © Masashi Kishimoto

**Chapter 01 – (Prologue)**

**Our Empty Bond**

**- Now –**

"I have no choice but to send Uzumaki Naruto elsewhere," the elder Hokage sighed with frustration while rubbing his brows as he held a conversation with a few ninjas of the Jounin level. "If I can't find someone to take the boy in, he would have to be killed."

The Third Hokage was pressured into making a decision of having an innocent child being cast out of the village and country or be forced to destroy the life of a little toddler that has not done harm to anyone, yet. However, everyone feared of what the boy would become in the future because of the evil lurking deep inside him, waiting to be released. Five ninjas ranked as Jounin were standing around the desk in the office where they were summoned to discuss the pros and cons of the situation: if the boy left the country, he could live a _normal_ life, but if the boy stayed, he could release that dangerous nine-tailed fox demon inside him. There was a knock on the door before it opened on the person's own account to reveal colors of white and blue; a sign that the Fourth Kazekage had finally arrived as requested, and so the five ninjas bowed in respect and the Hokage stood with a smile as a warm welcoming to the ally. All Jounin left the room so that the two could speak in private about the matter that they were discussing before he had entered the office, causing an irritating silence between two until the host walked around the desk properly welcome the guest with a respectful hug between them.

"Forgive me for calling you on short notice." The elder, Sarutobi Hiruzen, spoke apologetically while patting the other's arm lightly.

"Let's just say your _request_ rather intrigued me." Arms crossed and a dull expression never left the guests face. "Where's the boy?"  
"He is being kept in another room down the hallway, would you like to see him?" The answer was obvious, and they left the office.  
A question appeared in the Kazekage's mind. "It sounds like suicide to have _two_ Jinchuuriki in _one_ Country, let alone one village."  
"But if you think about it—that would give enemies a reason to stay clear from the Country, let alone the village." He laughed lightly.  
For not having thought about it in that way, he chuckled mildly. "I suppose that _is_ true, huh?" Finally, they reached a door and opened it.

A small boy with three thin stripes on each cheek turned to the two whom came to greet him, and he stared at the new person he had never met with his big blue liquid pools and a tilted head in confusion, but it all immediately changed when the boy closed his eyes and gave a wide smile. The Fourth Kazekage had expected nothing less from the Fire Country of happy villagers and ninjas where supplies were large, but there was a tint of misunderstanding—that misunderstanding that even his youngest son had; it was obvious that neither of them were aware of what they were. More thoughts began to fill his mind when coming towards agreeing with the old man, leading him to actually come into agreement towards the voices in his mind to take the child back to the Wind Country where he could be raised to become something dangerous towards the enemies around them. Despite how he was almost too unwilling to pick up the child, he picked him up anyway, and cradled him in his arms before turning towards the Third Hokage with expressions still dull, though it seemed a little obvious that his decision was to take the child and raised him as asked of him.

"I suppose he will make a good ninja, after all, his father _was_ the Fourth Hokage." The Kazekage stated firmly.

Hiruzen bowed thankfully to him.

"When he's old enough, please teach him how to use the summoning jutsu." The elder added quietly.  
With a nod of his head, he looked to the boy in his arms, "are you ready to go, Uzumaki Naruto?"  
"Where are we going?" Naruto asked in a small little tone filled with curiosity. "Why are we going?"

"We are going home."

Paperwork and information was gathered up in order to take the little one to his new home where he would possibly be more useful sometime in the near future by scaring off the enemy and keeping everyone under the Kazekage's watch would be safe from the harm of intruders. Soon the Hokage and many others had come to the gates to bid the two a farewell with some hoping never to see the life of the little blond-haired boy ever again, and the rest of them hoped that he would get strong enough to protect the village that he would now live in. Despite how it was a three day run or a one-week walk, the Kazekage had eventually returned home with the child in arms and several ninja to guide the pathway back to the Wind Country so that ill-mannered bandits would be kept at bay or else suffer a pain much worse than death itself.

Before anything else when he arrived, he went to bring the child to his son.

"Boy," the Kazekage called out to his youngest son that was isolated from everyone, and placed the blond-haired child inside the room with him, "this boy will be living with you. He is _exactly_ like you; therefore, you best play _nicely _with him, understood?"

The small red-haired boy with black rings around his pale green eyes nodded softly to his father's stern request before looking over to the blond-haired one with whiskered cheeks beneath his blue eyes who smiled brightly at him, and with the man left once he received acknowledgment. Naruto looked around the large room to see many toys and stuffed animals that filled the walls to no end that allowed him to feel a little excited if this was the 'home' that he was told about, and yet the first thing he did was stumble over towards the redhead and fell on his butt in front of him. In front of the blond-haired child where the redhead sat, he began to have a little fit of giggles because of how the other boy had fallen so carelessly on the floor whom now pouted at the humiliation he was receiving, but had also began to have a fit of some cute giggles on his own carelessness. Now that he had a child his age to play with—someone to play with at _all_, the black ringed toddler motioned his hand to a stuffed animal to summon his sand forth and bring it to his first playmate, stunning the other instantly when the sand had appeared so suddenly in front of him.

"You're… Gaara…" the blond-haired boy started slowly as he now held a little stuffed animal, "…right?"  
Now smiling, the other nodded his head; happy to be known already. "So… who are you?"  
"Uzumaki Naruto." He grinned widely at him for asking, and they heard someone knocking at the door.  
"Gaara-sama, you're dinner is ready—" it was a woman, and she froze when seeing the other boy.  
Knowing that she was about to becoming overprotective, Gaara announced. "He was brought here."

_'Gaara…-sama…?'_ Naruto thought curiously and looked at the lady curiously. _'Sama?'_ It meant showing high respect, did it not? So why not try it, huh? "Kazekage-sama brought me here from Hokage-sama… Lady-sama?" He did not know her name to say it.

Gaara looked at his newly accompanied playmate curiously, but then thought about throwing a stuffed animal at the blond-haired boy's head, so he grabbed the nearest one that he could and chucked it at the back of his head since the woman had stolen his attention right then. It plopped over the other boy's head who jumped in surprise before laughing for being startled, and then took a hold of the stuffed animal's limb to throw it back at him—but his sand had decided that it was going to attack him, forcing the sand to raise up immediately to defend the redhead from the toy. Now the woman that had entered moments ago was infuriated by the boy attacking the Kazekage's son like that with one of the many toys in the room and grabbed his wrist to throw the boy on his feet with a large leap away from the now upset little redhead who wanted to play. Gaara stated that the boy had done nothing wrong and that he wanted him to stay with him, but the woman seemed to be bruising the playmate's wrist as he whimpered, whined, and begged to be released by the woman, so Gaara motioned his hand out as if to grab the boy—which he did. Sand had wrapped around the lower body of the one with whiskers in order to remove him from the woman's grasp and keep him in the same room; the action of the sand moving by command of the redheaded child had terrified the woman who hurriedly stood and left the room in a flash.

Naruto turned to look at the boy as the sand slowly vanished, "thank you," he tried to think of what the woman said, "Gaara-sama."  
"Do you… want to play?" The red-haired boy asked quietly, not knowing if the boy would reject his asking of fooling around.  
"That sounds fun!" A toothy grin flashed in the asker's direction until he paused to look around. "Uh… what can we play?"  
"Oh…" Unfortunately, he had not thought that far because he had thought that he was going to be rejected from the idea.

Watching the black ringed boy for an answer seemed hopeless after silence filled the air for an entire minute, "hey, Gaara-sama," Naruto called out, earning the boy's attention before pouncing him playful. "If you can't think of one, I'm going to be making one up!" Pale green orbs stared at him in disbelief for what just happened; did the boy just try to attack him—harm him—hurt him? A blast of sand then struck the whiskered other and smashed him into the wall on the opposite side of the room, only to hear laughter. "Wow! That was cool! How did you do that?" The boy scratched his head to feel grains of sand. "Aw, I got sand in my hair now…"

"You… didn't try to hurt me?" Gaara asked confusedly while trying to figure out what was going on.

"Eh… hurt you—why would I do that, you wanted to play, right?" Naruto squinted childishly at him, he too trying to figure out was happening. "I pounced you, is that bad?" Getting up on wobbly legs, he came over and sat right in front of the other with his curious expression. "Do you play differently in this country? How do _you_ play then, Gaara-sama? Sand-ball fights or something like that?"

Not understanding what he meant about 'sand-ball fights' had thrown his attention off easily and had his pale green eyes to gaze at the six thin stripes on the playmate's face, causing his hand to subconscious raise up to touch them with gentle fingertips to figure out whether or not. In return for touching his face so casually, the blond-haired little child rose one of his own hands to the other's face to trace the thick black rings surrounding his light colored eyes with two soft finger tips to also see if that were actually real or just some makeup an adult would wear. Both of them continued to examine each other's marks that showed how both of them were hosts to tailed beasts though they were unaware of the information about them, and once they confirmed their curiosity of each other's marking were real, they both smiled about it before giving a light laughter.

"Hey Gaara-sama," Naruto grabbed the other's little hands in his own, smiling brightly, "let's be best of friends, okay?"

Hearing the words he had wanted to hear for as long as he could remember, he nodded happily before giving a return pounce.

(A/N: Chapter will be longer in the future.)


	2. Chapter 02

**Chapter 02**

**Our Empty Bond**

**- Now –**

(A/N: Since villagers do not know about Uzumaki Naruto being the Jinchuuriki of the nine-tailed fox, they will not hate him—instead, they will actually admire him as Konoha admired his father. I'm just trying to clarify this before people are vexed or puzzled about why everyone fears Gaara and not Naruto, okay? Before I forget, Naruto isn't really an idiot who wants attention because he gets _plenty_ of it from the Kazekage and the villagers, so therefore he's more of a genius—like his father, or Hatake Kakashi rather.)

_**Two Years Later.**_

Quiet and alone on some swings in front of some kids playing a game with a ball, he tried to wait patiently for his friend to arrive so that they could talk and play a game involving the two of them and nobody else—just like the two worlds they created in their minds; the _our_ world and _their_ world. Gaara seemed to scare off everyone almost instantly once they caught glimpse of his red colored hair, pale green orbs, and the black rings that surrounded them; it was something that made his insides throb while not understanding what was happening with him and his body. Naruto on the other hand had become friends with quite a few of the villagers that would be surprised of how close he was to the terrifying child, yet it seemed like everyone would relax just a little if he was there by Gaara's side to somehow keep him and his _beast_ calm. Lonely eyes looked over at the group of children who were whining about their ball going atop of a roof where they could not reach, so with hope of being allowed to play with them, some sand appeared around the ball to bring it down to the ground level and into the redhead's hands to hold.

The children panicked when seeing the boy, "y-you're…"  
He looked a little disappointed, but offered the ball, "here."  
"It's Gaara…" One of the boys panicked. "Gaara of the Sand!"  
"Run!" A girl yelled before they all turned to retreat from the spot.

Pale orbs widened in surprise to see them all flee from his being and reached out desperately to them. "Wait!" His desire for them to stay behind had subconsciously commanded the sand to grasp some of the children against their will. "I… I don't want to be left alone…" Even after saying this to them, they were screaming and yelling—begging someone to save them from the redheaded boy.

This angered him to an extent that his sand darted forth to murder the children, causing them to scream even more in fear.

"Gaara-sama!" A boy yelled and stood in front of the children, taking the attack directly.  
His eyes widened worriedly when seeing his best friend defend the children. "…"  
"Gaara-sama…" It was Naruto; bleeding from the attack he embraced. "Calm down."  
"N-Naruto…" the name barely escaped from his gaping mouth; his expression unnamed.

He had harmed his friend.

Naruto turned to look at the village children, all of them around the same age, "what's going on here?"  
"…" They all looked at him in surprise as well—their words lost in their throats from fear.  
Gaara spoke weakly. "I… their ball landed up on the roof, I brought it down and they began to run…"  
"T-Then you grabbed us viciously with your sand!" A girl yelled furiously as her body trembled.

"Eh…?" Naruto looked at the kids. "Gaara-sama got your ball down; shouldn't you be more thankful to him?" He walked over next to Gaara to grab the ball that seemed to have caused the problem. "Hmm… since you don't know how to play nicely with others…" he molded chakra into his feet and jumped the walls until he reached the top and set the ball down. "I guess you won't need the ball!"

The girl became more angry than terrified now, "Naruto-kun, what are you doing! Give us our ball back!"  
"Why should I do that!" He hopped down and landed between them and Gaara. "You're upset that Gaara-sama took it down for you, right? So go ahead and take it down yourselves, or go ask one of your parents to do it." Naruto gave them a cool grin to boot.  
Now one of the boys spoke out their mind. "Why are you only punishing us! That monster attacked us Naruto-san!"  
"Huh? Aren't you guys the monsters for yelling and screaming in someone's face who did you a favor free of charge?" The blond-haired boy frowned in confusion. "If you merely took the ball and had said thank you, none of this would have happened then."  
"What's going on?" A feminine male came over and saw the boy in the center, "Naruto-kun, why are you bloody?"  
Seeing that it was Gaara's uncle made him place his arms behind his head and gave a big smile, "ah, I was training as Kazekage-sama ordered me too, and I came to check on Gaara-sama. Don't worry; my wounds will heal up sooner or later!" He laughed.

"Nii-chan," one of the younger boys called out meekly. "C-Can we have our ball back?"  
Naruto looked at the boy and decided to cross his arms, "but my legs are tired now."  
"U-Um… c-can you ask G-Gaara to do it?" The boy was then smacked on the head.  
"Don't ask such a ridiculous thing you idiot!" An older boy demanded cockily.  
"If you want Gaara to do it, ask him." Naruto stated before gazing at the said boy.  
"…" Gaara did not know what to do at this point and remained quiet.

The little boy went next to Naruto to use him as a shield and asked nervously. "G-G-G-Gaara, c-c-c-c-can you… u-uh… our b-ball?"  
He kept quietly while looking at his friend smile with a nod, and replied. "Sure…" His sand summoned the ball back into his hands.  
"Now go get the ball _nicely_ and say thank you." Naruto demanded lightly, causing the little one to nod weakly and shift forwards.  
_'Nii-chan will protect me… nii-chan will protect me… nii-chan will protect me!'_ The boy thought as he came over to Gaara.  
Knowing his friend, the redhead waited for the boy to come closer to take the ball away from him. _'But their scared of me…'_  
Finally, the boy made it in front of Gaara and bowed humbly, "t-thank you f-for getting our ball!" He weakly looked up.  
He tried to give the boy a smile and offered the ball to the boy slowly as Naruto taught him. "You're welcome."

Ever so slowly did the boy take it away from his hands, then turned away and ran to the others. "I-I did it!"

All of the children celebrated for the boy that survived getting so close to Gaara before running off to play somewhere out of their sight much to the red-haired child's dismay, but Naruto came over and congratulated him on the progress with the other village kids, and that they needed more time. The feminine male, Yashamaru, came over and praised the two of them by patting their head and saying how they did a good job confronting other children that were not so agreeable about Gaara's presence being so close to them without them having noticed it until it was too late. Now that all of the praising was finished, he had no choice but to scold Naruto for not being careful during his _training_ where he received nasty gashes on his head and arms, and told both of the children that it was time to go back home so that he could treat the boy's wounds quickly. It always surprised Gaara that Naruto constantly kept him out of trouble and from him not to be blamed for something he did—even go so far as to make the villagers realize his existence so that he would never have to feel so lonely when being only with so few people. They made it back home where Naruto was having his wounds being tended to as Gaara clung to him while sulking about harming his best friend with his sand, but the attention went unnoticed until Yashamaru left them only in the room once the wounds have all been bandaged.

Naruto turned his head towards the other boy. "Gaara-sama, do I look good in these?"  
Disappointed for not being scolded, he clung tightly. "Why aren't you mad at me?"  
"Mad?" Confusion was expressed all over his face. "Did you do something wrong?"  
Tears began to appear over black rings. "I-I attacked you! I-I'm so sorry Naruto!"

"These are just scratches, and I jumped in on my own." Naruto gave him a cheerful smile as he wiped away those tears of his, and then quickly remembered. "Kazekage-sama wanted me to meet him at sunset, so I'm already late… I'll be back though... okay?"

He wanted to say no—that he could not leave, but his hand released him because it was the Kazekage who wanted to see him.

Naruto was now a ninja because he was forced to do so by the Kazekage himself, so his time with Gaara was limited to spending only a quarter to half a day to spend with him if there were no missions he was forced to go on; but being sent on missions was rare—even if he _was_ a Chuunin. Gaara felt no jealousy or hatred towards him because he would always come to him immediately after he was done training with the Kazekage and several of the Jounin, and would play with him all day when he had his days off from the long and tiring days on the training grounds. Yashamaru entered the room sometime around five minutes after Naruto had fled off to meet the top man of the village, and claimed that he overheard Gaara saying that he had attacked Naruto; leading him to analyze the situation that it was the redhead whom wounded Naruto, not the training.

"Do wounds hurt?" Gaara frowned sadly for not understanding the pain.  
Yashamaru smiled. "Just a little, but Naruto-kun's wound will heal by morning."  
"What does pain feel like?"The thought of his friend being harmed worried him greatly.  
Surprise appeared on the feminine male's face when asked the question, "…"

"I've never been hurt before, so I was wondering how it felt…" He seemed even sadder when he added in a mumbling tone. "I try to ask Naruto before, but he never answers me; he always says that he's happy that I never get hurt by anything."

Yashamaru did not know how to explain such a thing, "I guess… it's painful, and unbearable…" that did not help the boy, so he tried to make up examples. "Like when a person is shot or cut, they turn ill and can't think properly." The boy still did not understand the words that he was being told. "I can't explain it all too well, but in simple words; it's not a very good condition to be in."

Gaara stared up at him for the longest time ever while thinking about Naruto as he darted out in front of his attacks and how he was painfully wounded by them; causing him to feel something that he did not understand all too well, but it made him wonder if Naruto hated him since he never answered. He then asked the man if Naruto hated him for what he had done, and Yashamaru could only smile sadly while stating that Naruto could never hate his best friend no matter what would happen between the two of them, and then added how people get hurt during their lifetimes. His sullen face brightened when hearing that Naruto did not hate him for what he had done earlier that day, then spoke of how he believed he understood what hurting was and suggested that he might also be wounded as Naruto did as he grasped the clothing over his heart. The boy stated how even though he was not bleeding, his chest really hurt in that general area, and so Yashamaru came over to cut his finger in front of him—causing him to be surprised by such reckless actions of harming one's self… soon the blood oozed out of the wound easily.

"Flesh wounds bleed and seem painful, but the pain leaves as time passes by, and they heal faster with medicine." So far, it looked like Gaara was starting to understand. "But the tricky wound are the ones in your heart, and their much more difficult to heal, and unlike flesh wounds—there are no ointments for them and might never heal." Seeing that sad face of his return, Yashamaru added. "But there's one thing that can heal a wound of the heart, but it's a medicine you can only receive from another person.

Eager to have the pain go away, Gaara asked hurriedly. "How can I heal this?"  
He smiled in return to this. "The one thing that can heal a heart is simple; love."  
"Love?" The boy asked. "How can I get it? What should I do to get rid of the pain?"  
"Gaara-sama has already received it though." Yashamaru turned to a picture frame.  
He also turned to look at the picture that was supposed to be his mother, "…"

"Love is the spirit of devoting yourself to someone important and close to you, and it's expressed by caring for—and protecting for that person, just like Naruto-kun and my sister." The feminine man stated with a smile. "I believe that they both always loved you. Shukaku is a living soul that is usually used for combat purposes, and the sand automatically protects you because of love. I believe the will of your mother is inside the sand; she probably wanted to protect you even after death."

Gaara smiled weakly for the comfort, but frowned when Yashamaru claimed that he was important to him.

"Yashamaru, did you give Naruto ointment?" The redhead asked curiously.  
He blinked in confusion. "He doesn't need ointment; Kyuubi heals him quickly."  
"But I want to give him ointment so that his wounds even faster!"

* * *

Waiting patiently for an hour for Naruto to return home was long enough for the red-haired child with black rings around his eyes, and so he decided to go on a walk in hopes of greeting him as he returned home, and somehow some drunken man managed to crash into him and blamed him for it. Angry that the villagers treated him like he was a monster, he killed the man without hesitation before continuing on his walk as some other villagers came to see what all of the commotion was about, but they became quiet when instantly learning that it was Gaara's doing. It turned out that his father had watched the entire thing happen, and Gaara felt ashamed for what he did and began heading home if the Kazekage was wondering about without Naruto at his side; they must have finished their conversation not too long ago, at least hopefully. Disappointed about how the night went, he decided to get away from everyone and sit atop of a roof in front of the full moon to constantly ask himself why he was the monster that was hated and why Naruto was not; he did _not_ want to become jealous of his best friends, but even so…

"Gaara-sama, you had me worried." His voice called out worriedly.  
Pale orbs widened in surprise and turned to look at him. "N-Naruto…"  
"As soon as I learned a new forbidden technique, I ran all the way home."  
"Sorry," he frowned, "I wanted to surprise you, but then… I…"

Instantly he knew that the other had killed someone, "its okay, I bet they deserved it."  
"How can you be okay with it?" Gaara started to sulk. "I could have even killed you—"  
"But you didn't kill me, right?" Naruto stated. "I'm glad you didn't, or else you'd be lonely."  
Hearing this made him get up, hug the boy, and cry against him. "I'm so sorry Naruto!"

Just as the blond-haired boy was about to reply to the other with comforting words because his main concern was about Gaara, he did not notice the six kunai that about to pierce his back until it already happened—forcing him to cringe and yelp in pain before turning to look at the attacker. It was some assassin most likely since their face was covered, so he turned his attention to them before dashing out to attack the ninja, but Gaara had called out in worry to him that broke his concentration and was bashed against the rooftop… knocking Naruto out cold almost instantly. This had infuriated Gaara to no end and immediately sent his sand out towards the assassin and crushed their body with it… only to realize that the assassin had a familiar wound that the feminine male had, so now his shaken fury resorted to now trembling fear of who the attacker was. Forcing himself to find out who it was that attacked his friend, he came over and removed the items hiding the assassin's face that revealed how it really _was_ Yashamaru, and the pain was so hard to bear that Gaara screamed it all out through his fear and panic of the situation afoot. Once telling the very unstable child that Yashamaru was to kill both him and Naruto, he stated that he was never loved by anyone, and he opened his vest to show the many explosive tags that immediately went off in front of Gaara's face though deflected from the sand. Now shattered into a million pieces by someone he trusted, he began yelling and screaming at the top of his lungs as he absorbed the sand that imprinted the kanji of 'love' on the side of his forehead… and he desperately wanted to kill somebody—_everybody_…

He defined himself as truly alone, and his first victim would be the boy that was just starting to wake up.

"G-Gaara-sama…" Naruto winced and looked around, "are you okay? Where did that assassin go?"  
"You too…" Gaara said shakily; his body was still trembling. "You're against me too, aren't you!"  
"H-Huh?" Taken back with confusion by the words, he tried to stand up on his feet quickly.  
Rage filled the redhead's heart as he summoned the sand to cover his body. "You hate me too!"

"W-What are you talking about Gaara-sama? What happened?" The blond-haired boy soon noticed that Gaara was insecure and was ready to kill him at any time with the wave of his hand, so he sighed. "Gaara-sama, I don't know what happened while I was—"

"Don't call me that!" He yelled in fear, tired of being called this after just being betrayed.

"I don't know what happened, but if killing me will ease the pain you're suffering, then please do so." Naruto stated quietly while expressing a very sad frowned towards his best friend. "I told you earlier though, didn't I; that I would be sad if you were lonely?" He had never witnessed Gaara like this before, and calming him down might be his biggest problem yet. "I never hated you." The sand slowly began to leave Naruto's body until it scurried back to the ground completely, and the other ran at him to punch him constantly in the face and anywhere else he could, but Naruto did _**not**_ fight back to prove that he did not hate him. "Are you okay?"

After being punched for twenty minutes, Naruto still asked if Gaara was okay.

"Don't lie to me! Tell me the truth!" Gaara demanded with a raspy tone from all of his screaming.  
He frowned at the other while gently taking his hand to clean off his blood on him. "I never lie to you."  
"How… how can you possible not hate me—everyone hates me! I even hate me!" His heart throbbed.  
"We're the same, remember?" Naruto hugged the boy. "We _both_ have to endure monster within us…"

The world that belonged to them shattered into over a trillion pieces.

The world the belonged to others was now just a terrifying black hole.

"Did you kill the assassin?" Naruto asked tiredly from the loss of blood.  
He nodded weakly to him. "I-I-It was Y-Y-Y-Yashamaru… he… he…"  
"Betrayed us," his eyelids closed, "damn it… I wanted to kill him."  
"W-Why did you want to kill him?" His mind sought for a reason.

"I don't care who or what that assassin was… but they made you think that I would turn against you…" Naruto's body was too weak now and collapsed onto the ground while quietly added. "Because of that, I would have wanted to kill whoever gave you that idea that I would betray you… ah!" Naruto winced in a viscous manner as Gaara removed the kunai out of his back, and he tried to grasp onto some sort of rock to keep him still. Once they were all out of his back, he sighed before collapsing, "I… need to rest… for awhile…"

"N-Naruto?" Gaara stared at him in disbelief… Naruto could _**not**_ be dead. "N-Naruto!"

Naruto merely fell unconscious from the pain and blood loss, but Gaara did not know.

"NARUTO!"

His panicked screams turned into loud roars of that of a monster; namely Shukaku.

(A/N: It will be a little more free hands soon; I'm just getting everyone to understand the changes of Gaara's life, …and Naruto's.)


	3. Chapter 03

**Chapter 03**

**Our Empty Bond**

**- Now –**

(A/N: Unfortunately, someone needs to take Naruto's place in Team 7, so… why not Sai? He's almost just as annoying, in a different way.)

_**Six Years Later, One Week Ago.**_

Gaara and his two siblings were brought in to one room by their supposed _team leader_, Baki, to discuss about an invasion against the large Konohagakure during the Chuunin Exams so they could have an advantage over Konoha and crush it, which was why these three were going to take the challenge. The blond-haired male sitting coolly against the wall since he could not take the test because he had not been a Genin rank for six years because of the brute training he received until he was that of an assassin by the time he was ten years old—the Kazekage taught him plenty over the years now. The female sibling on the other hand began to ramble about how the two villages were allies and not enemies, and to the announced team leader had to tell them that it was an important mission for both Gaara and Naruto as the Kazekage demanded, and how the Kazekage's demands were absolute.

"Fine." Gaara replied in his icy fashion; so long as he got to kill, he did not care for it.  
"That isn't the Kazekage," Naruto spoke a little coldly. "His scent is different than usual."  
"Either way," the man started." We will go to war as soon as the mission is executed."  
After complaining about the upcoming war, Temari frowned. "Many are going to die again."

"This is all Kazekage-sama's will, whether he's a little off or not." He stated seriously. "We ninja are tools."

Naruto got up with his hands in his pockets now, "if Gaara agrees with it, then that's fine by me."

_**Present.**_

"I suppose I'll check the perimeter for you guys to see if there is any interference towards the plan." Naruto stopped to look at the siblings, but mainly towards Gaara, "do any of you want to come along?" Silence was his answer, and so the left the area quickly.  
Gaara watched as the boy left the scene before he turned to the opposite direction. "I'll be back later." It was obvious that he wanted to find someone to kill in the future, but for now he had to behave and settle down those urges unless he wanted to get into trouble.  
Kankurou sighed in relief once the tension left the air, "I thought I was going to die from suffocation; I can stand them one at a time, but together is just Hell, ya know?" He began walking forth down a path. "Well, we might as well take in the sights for now."  
"You should be thankful that Naruto decided to come with us since this village was the one that gave him to us." Temari sighed lightly at her puppeteer brother. "Besides, without him, there's no way we could calm Gaara down; we _**need**_ him and you know it."

"Yeah, I know that, I'm saying that I wasn't this scared of them when we were kids." His foot lazily kicked a rock a few feet forward.  
She mildly explained why. "Gaara doesn't understand how much he needs Naruto anymore; he completely blocked off his feelings."  
"But the last thing we need is to have both of _'them'_ destroying everything with a fight." Kankurou huffed. "Also, about what he said."  
"You mean about Kazekage-sama's scent being different?" Her green eyes watched him nod. "I've been thinking about that too."

As the two were making conversation about how it might be possible that their father was dead and someone was just using techniques to make it look like they were the Kazekage to have them do their bidding, a kid crashed against Kankurou's leg harshly, causing the child to fall over in pain. There were three pint sized kids with goggles on their foreheads and an older pink-haired girl that had a headband over her head; it seems that the group of kids were fooling around the village instead of being good little boys and girls by staying home and doing their chores or something. Angry that the boy who bumped into him had not apologized for bumping into his leg, Kankurou grabbed the rascal by the scarf and had him hover a few feet in the air so that he was suffering from the gravity that was against him, but the puppeteer did not really mind the struggles.

"I said that _hurt_, you brat." Kankurou warned the boy he dangled in the air.  
Temari looked away in annoyance. "Stop it, otherwise we're going to be scolded."  
"I-I'm sorry." The pink-haired girl panicked at this. "I was only joking around and…"  
_'She's a Konoha Genin.'_ Kankurou smiled. "I want to play around before they come back."

The boy whimpered and started to kick at him. "L-Let go!"

He chuckled with amusement. "You're a little energetic brat." His grip tightened even more.  
"P-Please let him go, and then we'll be on our way!" The girl, Haruno Sakura, pleaded desperately.  
"Konoha's Genin are weak…" His tone became pleasant though. "But you piss me off too."  
_'At this rate, we really __**are**__ going to get into trouble…'_ Temari thought inwardly.

"I hate short people anyway, and you're extremely whiny for someone younger than me." Kankurou smirked as he added his true feelings about her and the kids that interrupted the important conversation he was having. "It makes me want to break you."  
She huffed at this and spoke aloud for her brother. "Fine, whatever, but don't expect me to be responsible for what you do."  
_'This guy is extremely dangerous… exactly where are they from—and why in the world are they here?'_ Sakura panicked inwardly.  
"After this brat, I'll take care of the others and we'll be on our merry way." Kankurou explained cheerfully to his sister.

Just as Kankurou was about to punch the boy in the face as his fun, something hit his hand hard enough to release the little brown-haired child instantly so that he could hold his hand while inspecting what hit him; it was a tiny little pebble—a _**pebble**_ was actually thrown hard enough to do some actual harm to him. His attention went upwards to see a black-haired boy with another pebble in his hand to prove that he was the culprit who hit his hand, and the children plus the pink-haired girl began to cheer thankfully to this 'Sasuke' character while it only angered Kankurou even more that he had been hit by a kid. There was only two _kids_ that he would always back down from, and that was his little brother Gaara and Naruto, but this guy was neither of them—leading him to have the desire to kill the guy right on the spot for actually giving him a wound that was enough to draw some of his blood.

"What do you think you're doing in another's village?" The black-haired boy, Uchiha Sasuke, asked in annoyance.  
"He's so cool!" "Yay, Sasuke-kun!" "You're our hero!" "You're so cool!" The four from Konoha began to cheer._  
'He's kind of cute… for a kid.'_ Temari thought to herself with a perky tone and a mild blush.

A kunai was then thrust against the tree two _**inches **_away from Sasuke's face from where Kankurou and Temari stood, but neither one of them who had done the attack, and as everyone looked between Kankurou and Temari, they saw a blond-haired male that had a spare kunai in his hand. It was Sakura's turn to blush at the sudden appearance the boy that obvious missed hitting Sasuke's face on purpose, and the three little kids stared at him in awe when seeing that he seemed more dangerously cooler than the boy that was up in the tree; how were things going to heat up now. Annoyed that he was almost attacked with a weapon, Sasuke pulled out one of his own kunai and threw it at him as a return favor, but the blond male merely caught it with only two fingers—telling him that this person was no _ordinary_ ninja that he was up against now.

_'I didn't even see him before the kunai was thrown.'_

"What do you think you're doing, attacking others." Naruto demanded calmly.  
"Your group is the one that started—" Sasuke was interrupted.  
"I wasn't talking to you." His attention went to Kankurou.  
The puppeteer frowned. "T-They started it."

"I'm not interested in who started it." He replied before bringing his attention to Sasuke. "As for you, don't think you're so tough by catching him off guard, he tends to do that when he's having fun." Then he smiled lightly when turning. "Right, Kankurou-sama?"  
"I don't care about your opinion," Sasuke crushed the pebble in his hand. "Get lost already."  
_'Cocky little…'_ Kankurou would not stand for this. "Hey, get down here, you kid!"  
"…" the black-haired boy paid him no attention to do as he commanded.

The blond male looked to the puppeteer sternly, "don't get excited, it's possible that you can play later."  
He placed his puppet down, glaring at Sasuke."I hate kids like _you_; thinking that their so clever when they're not."  
His sister panicked at this and asked worriedly, "hey, you are _not_ planning to use Karasu, are you!"  
"Kankurou." The redhead's voice called out coldly when seeing what was doing down. "Stop."

Everyone stared at the boy that was upside down.

"You're a disgrace to our village." Gaara announced in a vexed tone.  
Naruto sighed tiredly, _'if anything, the argument will stop here.'_  
"G-Gaara…" Kankurou smiled sheepishly at being caught.  
_'This guy appeared as quietly as that other guy.'_ Sasuke thought.  
"Why do you think we came to Konoha?" Gaara demanded.  
"I-Well, they started it." Kankurou pleaded quietly to him.

"Shut up." He scolded the puppeteer. "I'll kill you."

Submission became his friend right now. "U-Understood. I'm truly at fault… I'm really sorry."  
"Excuse them," the black-ringed male looked to the Konoha citizens with uncaring eyes.  
They were what Sasuke was looking at right now. _'His eyes are unpleasant…'  
'To hit Kankurou's hand so easily with a rock, he might be worthy.'_ He thought silently.  
Naruto smirked. "It appears Gaara-sama has a new toy to play with for now, huh?"  
"Let's go," the red head spoke, "we didn't come here to fool around with kids."  
Kankurou smiled weakly to be on Gaara's… good side. "I… I know…"

"Wait a minute!" Sakura called out.

Just as the four were about to leave, they had to halt as Sakura began to bicker about where they were from and what they were doing in a village they were not from, but Temari showed them her pass while stating that three of them were Genin that were there to participate in the Chuunin Exams. Confused about how she said 'three of them were,' the pink-haired girl asked which one of them was not participating, and so Naruto looked at her while stating how he had become a Chuunin when he around six years old, and a Jounin by the time he was ten—he could not participate in the Exam. The three kids and the two Genin gaped in surprise to hear such a ridiculous thing, so Naruto reluctantly lifted his black short sleeve to reveal a tattoo on his left shoulder while explaining that medical ninjas had to repair the marking each time he grew, otherwise it stretched. To think that there a boy _his_ age that was already been appointed to the _Special Assassination and Tactical Squad_ was more than beyond their comprehension, so Naruto then ignored them after lowering his sleeve; thankful to have an identical attire as the black-ringed male.

Sasuke jumped down, "wait, you there." He stared at the one in the middle. "What's your name?"  
In hopes that the cute boy was addressing to her, she turned to look at him. "Me?"  
"No," the boy pointed, "both the one with the gourd, and the blond one that attacked me."  
Knowing that he was being addressed to, he turned without emotion. "Gaara of the Desert."  
"…" Naruto had no interest in Sasuke; it was obvious Gaara wanted to play with him.  
"I'm also interested in you." The redhead added quietly. "What's your name?"  
"Uchiha Sasuke." Unfortunately, Sasuke believed it was a minor rivalry.

"How about me… would you like to know my name?" Sakura smiled brightly.  
Gaara scolded her interruption and turned away. "I'm not interested."  
"What is your name?" Naruto asked, causing surprise in everyone.  
Temari smirked with interest, "oh, are you actually interested?"  
"Shh, don't tease when he's right there." Kankurou whispered.

"I-I'm H-Haruno Sakura." The pink-haired girl bowed humbly to him.  
"Sakura-sama, huh?" Naruto looked at her for the longest time.  
"W-What, d-do I have something on my face?" She blushed now.

His blue eyes turned to Gaara and apologized, "forgive me, but I would like to spend some time with the girl to understand this village." Meaning that he would possibly use his charms to find some sort of weakness in the village. "I'll return by sunset, is this okay?"

Temari and Kankurou were stunned when hearing Naruto telling Gaara that he was going to spend time with someone else when he had nothing to do, they turned to look at their youngest sibling to see that he did not seem at all affected by the request of hanging around the girl, a stranger. Gaara stood there with his piercing pale green orbs that never ceased to say how he would kill someone, but he merely nodded his head once without a care in the world before turning away and leaving, allowing Naruto to actually ask for permission from Sakura if she could show him around; she agreed though. Naruto and Sakura left the location once the other sand siblings left to follow Gaara to where they were staying, leaving three stunned children and a chuckling Sasuke in the dust; it was obvious that there was going to be an excellent fight between them someday… somehow…

"Is there any place to eat around here, Sakura-sama?" Naruto asked curious as he hopped the fencing to walk on the top.  
Her cheeks reddened at the extreme honorifics towards her, "s-s-sama?" She stopped in place to look at him shyly.  
"Is that bad?" He watched her continue to blush. "I never met someone who disapproved of my addressing…"  
"You don't have to be so respectful, how about Sakura-chan." Sakura stated curiously as he hopped down.  
He looked at her a little seriously. "no thank you Sakura-sama, now then, some food please?"

"Oh! I know just the place!" Sakura took his hand and ran to a nearby shop.

* * *

"Thank you for the meal," Naruto spoke as he grabbed the bowl and took a pair of chopsticks. "Well… it smells good at least."  
"We have the best ramen in the Fire Country my dear boy, try it and you'll love it!" The shop owner cheered happily.  
He smiled in return to the older man and replied, "I'm sure I will, thank you very much sir!"

Sakura watched the blond-haired boy in surprise when seeing his character change completely right in front of her soft green eyes, wondering if this was really who he was or if he was just trying to be kind to the old man by placing on a mask to hide what he was truly feeling right now. She panicked when watching the blond-haired boy freeze after taking his first bite of the ramen, just before grinning widely and slurping it down before asking for seconds because it was better than he had expected it to be, causing the shop owner to laugh wholeheartedly from this. Her attention went from happy to worried, to relief that nothing was wrong with the food or anything—in fact, it surprised her that he was already asking for seconds when she had barely finished half of her first bowl, but he stopped eating after his second serving and paid for both of their meals after she finished.

"W-Why did you pay for the meals?" Sakura pondered as she walked at his side.  
"I suddenly asked where to find a meal." He replied. "It's only fair that I pay for it."  
Her cheeks reddened at this, _'but you make it feel like it's a date or something.'  
_The blond boy bit his thumb and placed it on the floor, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"

A little toad appeared and saluted playfully to Naruto. "Yo, what do ya need boss?"

Naruto squatted down to look at him. "Gamakichi-sama, you think you can find a waterfall to train under?"  
"It'd be easier to ask my Pops to help out, this place seems too big!" Gamakichi whined.  
"I can't summon him here; he'd destroy the village." He dipped his head. "Fine, want some backup?"  
"Just about twenty to a hundred will do, and I'll tag up with one of them to give directions."  
He formed the hand signature and sighed. "Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"  
_'A-Amazing!'_ Sakura looked all around her.

Immediately, a hundred replications appeared and fanned out to search for a waterfall as the real one commanded with through his thoughts before creating them, and one of them took Gamakichi for assistance to find one. "Well, now that their looking, how about you show me around your village, it's much livelier than where I live." He chuckled lightly before walking forth.

"So you really _**are**_ at an ANBU level?" The pink-haired girl stared at him in disbelief.  
He scratched his cheek with a finger. "Kazekage-sama trained me since I was four."  
"Wow, to think such an important person would have that kind of time for you!"  
_'You're a little slow; he trained me to be a weapon.'_ Naruto merely smiled.

"Sakura!" A girl called out.

Naruto saw a light blond-haired girl running over with a wave of her hand and so he hopped on the bridge railing to sit in a squatting position in case she was a little too energetic; he knew from experience that girls could be so attaching that they could break someone's neck with one hug. He looked at Sakura to ask if she knew the girl coming over and if they were friends with one another, but she waved her hand to claim that they were love rivals for someone, and so he resisted the urge to ask if she would like him to kill the girl to reduce whatever rivalry that they had. His mind trailed along the thoughts of how people needed someone to hate, but they also needed someone to love, and it would be so much better if he could explain this to Gaara—his thoughts were cut off when Sakura motioned a hand towards him to introduce the female in front of them.

"Don't try to ignore the reason I'm here! You made Sasuke-kun angry, didn't you?" The girl fumed.  
Sakura growled at her while continuing to introduce her, "this is the _ugly_ Yamanaka Ino of team ten."  
"UGLY? DON'T YOU DARE CALL ME UGLY YOU WIDE-FOREHEAD GIRL!" Ino hissed dangerously.  
"It's a pleasure to meet you," Naruto smiled, though inwardly nervous, "you have a nice scent too."  
She stopped yelling and blushed at the boy, "o-oh, I… I didn't see you there, I'm Yamanaka Ino."  
_'Good, she stopped yelling.'_ He smiled even brighter. "So you two are love rivals for that Uchiha, huh?"

When hearing this, the two girls looked at one another and began growling fiercely at one another.

"It's nice to see rivals that don't kill or spill each other's blood over something." Naruto looked at them both with soft eyes that made the two blush even more. "Since you two are going to talk about that Uchiha boy, I suppose I should just give myself a tour now…"  
The two girls panicked when he hopped over their heads, and they both spoke in unison, "don't be silly! She is not important at all! I would love to show you around the village!" Both of them grabbed one of his hands to take him someone. "Please, this way!"

As they nearly ripped him in two, he disappeared in a puff of smoke; it was a replacement—where was the real one.

"I don't mind if both of you escort me around, but do you think you can go somewhere in _unison_?" Naruto asked above their heads.  
The two girls looked at each other for the moment before crossing their arms and huffing, "no thank you!"  
"Fine, fine, I'm sure someone else would like to tell me the details." He struck the bridge with a kunai. "Isn't that right, sir?"

Beneath the bridge was a man with gray hair, a mask over the lower half of his face, and a Konoha headband crossed over his left eye that had been listening in on the conversation for quite some time now, and it surprised him that the boy had figured out that he had been there. Soon enough, the man revealed himself because he was caught, and Sakura whined while calling him 'Kakashi-sensei,' but seeing his face made the boy tense when remembering how the Elders told stories about the 'White Fang' and even had a picture of him—no doubt he was an offspring. To make sure there was some sort of peace between the two of them, Hatake Kakashi waved a hand to show whatever innocence he might posses in the situation while instantly identifying who the boy was, seeing how the boy's father had been his mentor and the Fourth Hokage.

"It's been a long time Naruto-kun." Kakashi tried to be friendly.  
Sakura seemed surprised at them, "eh, do you know each other?"  
"So you know who I am, Hatake?" Naruto asked in a curious tone.  
Ino looked at Naruto in a stunned manner, "you know him?"  
"Not exactly," he replied and hopped down from the tree.

"Naruto-kun was born here in Konoha, but no one could take care of him, so the Fourth Kazekage took him in." Kakashi answered their curiosity for the most part, and he looked to the boy. "You've sure grown up, are you taking part in the Chuunin Exams?"

"Kakashi-sensei, he's a Jounin already! He even has a tattoo on his left shoulder!" Sakura was obviously excited about him.  
Naruto sadly looked at her in confusion over her excitement. "Why are you so thrilled about me being a Jounin, is it that special?"  
"No way, you're already a Jounin? That's amazing Naruto-kun!" Ino nearly shoved her face in front of his.  
Kakashi watched as the girls pestered Naruto little by little. _'If he's a Jounin, it might mean that he has control over Kyuubi then…'_

Trying to stay sane, he hopped on top of a building and waved at them. "I'm going to go look around, see you later ladies!" He then darted out of sight while running the rooftops with the breeze in his hair. It was all fine and dandy until he saw a shadow rapidly move with no owner, causing him to turn around and bring out a kunai to reflect the sunlight on it. "Shadow manipulations, huh?" A huge hand was about to engulf him in a fist to make him realize that the shadow would have an opportunity to catch him, but he did a quick back flip before launching himself on the large hand to sit down like a canine. "I have no intention of fighting Konoha ninjas."

"Pretty smart to use the reflection of the sun to stop my shadow," a boy in a ponytail commented lazily.  
His plumped friend added. "He knew to jump on the back of my hand as well! But you're still the enemy."  
"Enemy?" Naruto asked in a perplexed tone before showing his pass. "Here's my traffic pass, alright?"  
Nara Shikamaru walked over and looked at it, "fine, whatever, what are you doing running around here?"

"A Haruno Sakura-sama and a Yamanaka Ino-sama were fighting over me about where they would like to show me, so I decided to look around the village without them." His blue orbs glanced around the area and mumbled lightly. "My replicas still haven't found a waterfall either…" He hopped off Akimichi Chouji's hand and waved lazily. "I still want to get a hundred feet away from them; hope to see you Genin play in the Chuunin Exams, possibly even live through them."

Already the blond-haired boy was getting annoyed at all of the trouble that was going after him everywhere he went, there were many unique ninja in the village that he could manage, but he was more aware that there were most likely some clans to avoid mucking in for the time being. Thinking about more trouble though, there was a large dog picking on a small white puppy, so he did the natural by landing down and growled darkly at the dog to back off—it probably would not have had much affect on the dog if he had not used the nine-tailed fox's growl instead of his own. He told Kyuubi to heal the fur ball when he picked up the little pup carefully at the sight of the wound, and because it was his host that commanded the task, the tailed beast was forced to obey in return for what Naruto had given him so many years ago; freedom from the seal. Once the pup was fixed up and healed, it was very grateful to Naruto despite the strong level of chakra that made it quiver a little bit even though knowing that it was safe; now was the time to find the owner of the little canine; it was obvious from how mannered it was in his arms right now. Hearing a faint yelling of a male saying 'Akamaru' must have meant they were looking for the little pup in his arms, so he walked over in the direction to see two males and a female searching the area… just how many Genin were going to pop out at him—at least they have not attacked.

"Hey, is this pup yours?" Naruto asked curiously, gathering their attention instantly.  
The boy with the hood on began to yell. "Who are you? Give me back Akamaru!"  
Akamaru barked at his owner, telling him that the person had protected him.  
"It was being attacked, so I healed it and looked for the owner." Naruto grumbled.  
He looked at him sternly, but lightened up. "Thanks… I owe you one, I'm Inuzuka Kiba."  
"There's nothing to owe." He handed him the pup. "It's a nice pup though."

"Yup, and we're going to be entering this Chuunin Exam soon!" Kiba grinned.

"Chuunin Exams?" His expression saddened lightly. "Are you sure about it?"

"E-Excuse me but… w-we're stronger than we look." The violet-haired girl stated weakly.  
He looked at her while blinking, and smiled brightly. _'Finally someone not obsessed.'_  
"I-I'm Hyuuga Hinata," her form bowed to him, "thank you for finding Akamaru for us."  
"Don't worry about it, but I should go, and you should train." Naruto waved lightly.  
"Are you saying that you are stronger than us?" Aburame Shino questioned stoically.  
Akamaru barked at Kiba to tell him that the person had an extremely strong chakra flow.  
Hearing this caught Kiba by surprised. "He's that strong? But you're not even shaking…"

Naruto immediately understood that the dog was for ninja purposes, meaning that he could probably sense how strong someone was by narrowing down on their chakra, so it was obvious that the pup had a mere taste of how strong he could be with just a fragment of the nine-tailed fox inside him. For some reason he felt like he was going too fast around Konoha that he ended up meeting several villagers that were nice ninjas, but the thought of them going to the Chuunin Exams to be killed by Gaara was something that he could not really handle on his conscious very well. Trying to convince the group not to participate would lead towards complications with the plan to destroy Konoha, not that he really cared about the plan of it all, though the only thing that he did not want to deal with at the moment was being scolded at by Gaara for such a weak purpose.

Suddenly, Baki appeared behind Naruto in a kneeling position, possibly holding information.

He began to speak, "it appears that there's still no sign of any false actions of Kazekage-sama."  
"Then why are you wasting your time to say it to me?" Naruto complained. "Search the outskirts."  
The outskirts would take days! "We don't have that time for that!" To say this was the wrong idea.  
"Do what you want, I don't care." Arguing was pointless anyhow. "What about the siblings?"  
"Kankurou is resting, Temari is watching Gaara, but Gaara…" Baki did not know how to explain.

_'No doubt Gaara-sama is getting a little irritated.'_ Naruto sighed. "I'll be there when I'm called."

Once Baki left, Kiba fell on his butt with utter confusion.

"W-What was that about!" Kiba asked in a frightened manner at the sudden appearance _**and**_ disappearance.  
His blue eyes turned to him. "He is the team leader for the team that came in with us; I'm here as insurance."  
"Exactly what is it that you are insuring?" Shino looked at him stoically behind his black shades.  
"That no one gets killed _outside_ the Chuunin Exams." He answered truthfully. "I would be careful if I were you."  
"I-Is there something wrong?" Hinata asked worriedly. "O-Or something that you possibly know about even?"  
"I can't protect you from those of the village that I came with." Naruto stated in a hushed tone.

His eyes widened when knowing the presence behind him, but then relaxed.

"I thought you were sleeping, Kankurou-sama." He called out, mildly annoyed.  
"I _was_, but Gaara sent me to get you… or rather, I offered." The puppeteer sighed.  
Naruto smirked at this, "sorry, did he threaten to kill you if or something?"  
His eyes rolled, "what else is new, anyway, who are the brats you're with?"

"Ah, I helped the pup and ended up in small talk," blue eyes turned to the puppeteer, "they are also going to enter the Exams."

"Oh? So it means we can kill them without hesitation if we want?" Kankurou grinned as he stood by him.  
Team Eight looked at the older boy in the black attire a little nervously. _'This must be what he was saying.'_  
"No, I prefer the hesitation during the second stage." Naruto replied, forcing the puppeteer to obey him.  
"E-Eh? I thought you said you couldn't protect us from this idiot you came with! What gives!" Kiba roared.  
"Who are you calling an idiot you little—!" Kankurou was interrupted by a glare. "S-Sorry, I-I'll behave."  
Naruto looked at Kiba now. "It isn't him that you have to worry about, but you'll know if you see him."

Annoyed that the blond-haired boy was warning them about Gaara, he had to add, "I don't see why they have to worry about him, they should be more worried about you for being more dangerous…" Kankurou stopped the sentence and looked to the team of Genin. "Words of advice," he pointed to the blond-haired boy, "try not to get him angry—or the Sand's team for that matter."

"If we do?" Shino questioned; unfortunately making it sound threatening.

Naruto looked at him, "I will kill you."


	4. Chapter 04

**Chapter 04**

**Our Empty Bond**

**- Now –**

(A/N: So if you have not noticed; Naruto forces himself to be strict around Gaara, and then carefree if he is not around.)

Naruto sat on the rooftop of the academy during the afternoon while the sand siblings were out doing the entrance part of the Chuunin Exams, waiting patiently for Gaara to leave the double doors so that he could be at his side since the redhead was still annoyed that he had left during his free time. It was obvious that the black-ringed Jinchuuriki did not love anyone but himself, but he did not really notice how he would cling onto him as something to keep himself sane instead of letting the tailed beast to control him, which was why Naruto was allowed to continue on living in this world. A presence was felt behind him the moment that person appeared thanks to the nine-tailed fox inside of him who enhanced all of his senses, but the intruder made no intention of beginning a conversation with him, causing him to turn and face the man that he did not want to see yet. Sarutobi Hiruzen, the _Third Hokage_, stood behind him with a light smile in Naruto's direction, which did not really make him happy right now, so he slowly turned his entire body to fully face the man who had disowned him by sending him to the Wind Country when he was only a little child.

"So you're the one who threw me away to the Wind Country?" Naruto questioned stoically. "You don't need your _weapon_?"  
The elder frowned at this, "I don't know what they've told you, but my advisers had threatened to kill you if we had kept you."

So the Kazekage told him the truth; Konoha discarded him because he was a Jinchuuriki.

His eyes glowed red and gave a loud roar that shook the academy.

* * *

Almost all of the students either had screamed like girls or cowardly ducked under the desks when hearing a ferocious beast outside the academy that was shaking it apart practically, there were only three that were taking the exams who knew what was causing this large disruption right now. Akamaru whimpered and whined a little when saying that the chakra he was sensing right now was that of the blond-haired boy that had saved him last week, causing Kiba to panic because he did not believe that anyone could have such a sinister chakra, or even such a monstrous roar. Gaara was annoyed at the fact that the written test was being stalled by the ninja at the front of the room since he was too busy panicking about what was happening outside as the chakra became dense at a quick rate, meaning that someone was beginning to transform into a monster.

He walked out of the line casually and went to the open window to find a four-tailed miniature demon fox throwing the Hokage on the ground with the attention to kill. "Leave him alone," Gaara demanded reluctantly. "That's an order." His pale green eyes watched as it turned to look before turning to look at the Hokage once more, briefly, before leaving the scene to have his body recover.

With Naruto obeying his demand, he turned to look at the ninja who was supervising the enrollment before walking back to his spot in line with his older siblings while everyone else gaped or stared in surprise about the control he had over that monster. Gaara would have to do something about him in case he was going to be ruining his fun; if there was going to be anyone to kill, it would be by the one-tailed beast and not the nine-tailed one. Everyone settled down inside the classroom with Hell outside, what with the Hokage being attacked by some _beast_ that they had never seen before—yet of course they have not, since it was not a full-tailed beast at the moment. He knew that if he had allowed Naruto to continue, he would have most definitely decided to skip the plans and changed into the most feared creature in the world. The thought of what had happened all those years ago began to anger the Kazekage's youngest son, where was that hateful man anyway; Baki had yet to give Naruto the answer of where he was and what he was doing.

Something had to be wrong if he would not give up on something like this.

* * *

"You caused a great deal of trouble, Naruto." Temari called with a frown, sitting in front of the blond-haired male that did not care.  
Kankurou was sitting in a distant corner to stay out of the mess on the other hand. "You gotta give the guy a break Temari…"  
"How would you feel," Naruto spoke quietly while staring out of the open window. "To be in a village you were thrown out of?"  
"I understand that you're upset, but you can't go killing the Hokage, not yet at least." She added hesitantly at the end of her speech.  
The eldest male in the room allowed his head to dip forwardly with worry. _'You are going to get them angry, stop while you're ahead.'_  
"Our job is to wait for a signal to kill everyone." Gaara spoke from his own special corner. "Do not act so selfishly, if so, leave now."

Naruto looked at Gaara when hearing the speech, and almost wanted to return the words back at him—but he chose to obey him. "Very well, Gaara-sama, do not wait for me then. I will be acting selfish." He got up, turned away, and darted out of the window.

It was not that he was angry with anyone for trying to talk him down, but the demon inside him was still being very aggressive about wanting blood; a price that he had to pay when wanting to use the dangerous creature without losing his sanity, without losing sense of who he was. A pink-haired girl walked passed an alleyway that so happened to be the girl that he met on his first day in the big village, so he hopped the fences, jumped a roof, and landed casually in front of her with a stoic expression unfortunately. At first, it had seemed like she was thrilled to see the boy who was from another village, but she noticed that something was wrong with him because of the look on his face, even though he tried to smile warmly at her as she caught the drift of this.

"May we go eat some ramen together like before?" He asked quietly. "It will be my treat as it was the last time."

Sakura had blushed at this even though she gave a weak nod, but her entire face became red when he had taken her hand so that they could walk together as if they were some magical happy couple split between two families; though in this case it would be two countries. A red-haired male was not enjoying the sight that he was seeing from a rooftop; he was not happen of how willingly the other beast had left, so he had taken it upon himself to keep an eye on him to make sure that he would behave while he was out flirting with this… this _girl_. His own demon was stirring with fury to watch as someone was spending time with the other beast, it was obvious that something bad was going to be happening soon whether it was going to be his doing or not, but really it was for him to decide if this girl was going to be a threat to his world…

Even though Naruto was not in his world any longer.

"Thank you for joining me, I hope I'm not keeping you from something." Naruto frowned at the thought of it.  
Her cheeks reddened again at this. "N-No, not at all, but," she just had to ask. "Is something wrong?"  
"It is my rule that I do not lie." He grabbed his chopstick. "Therefore, I can't deny that there is."  
"Does it have something to do with that boy in your team—er, your group or whatever?"

His attention went to his bowl of food. "Gaara-sama is not something that I talk about so freely with others, not even his siblings." He then realized saying 'siblings' was already too much. "The group I came with has not troubled me, it is another… an elder rather."  
"So… that means that they would have to be from this country…" The pink-haired girl tried to think about it for a while. "Well…"  
"I am the Jinchuuriki of Konoha; I contain the Kyuubi that attacked the village twelve years-old." He stated flatly as he finished his bowl of ramen, before asking for another plate. "The Hokage had disowned me and gave me to Kazekage-sama when I was little."  
Sakura stared at him with disbelief at first, though started to realize something. "Wait… you're not lying… are you…"

Hearing this had caused him to sigh reluctantly. "I admit seeing the old man stirred me more than I imagined, and allowed myself to transform with four tails so that no one would know that it was me." He knew he was talking too much. He finished his bowl of ramen, paid for their meals, and smiled at her. "I have not been able to talk freely for such a long time. Thank you for having the meal with me, Sakura-sama." Leaning over a little, he gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Sorry for telling you this."

She watched in a dumbfounded manner as he stood up from his seat to leave the ramen stand, causing her to thank the old man for the meals before turning around to run after the blond-haired male that was casually walking away, already nearing the bridge that they were at before. Without thinking of what she was doing, she clasped her arms around one of his in order to have him wait for her so they could talk a little longer, but she noticed that the boy had become a little stiff for some reason—no, it did not matter, she still wanted to talk to him to understand something. He slowly looked at her, trying to have her reconsider what she was doing by leaving him to his business, but he knew that the girl was not going to be easy to shake off after being nice to her ever since him and the others arrived to the village, therefore, he would hear her out.

"I don't care what you are, you seem nice." Sakura slightly pleaded for him to rethink his ways. "I never heard of Jinchuuriki either."  
"They are hosts to monster; tailed beasts that cause chaos to the world, but we are also pets." He stared at the ground, thinking.  
Her head tilted a little confusedly at this, but shook it out of her mind. "I won't tell anyone what you are Naruto, I promise I won't."  
"I know you won't, because then I would have to kill you and the ones that know." He looked to her. "I do not want to kill you."

"Then perhaps I should." Gaara stated as his form appeared through the flying sand on the bridge. "Are you interested, Naruto?"

Naruto knew that he was being watched by the one-tailed beast, it was why he was leaving on such a short notice in order to protect Sakura from _this_ person. He removed his arm from her grasp before walking towards the redhead with black rings around his eyes, knowing that he would have to keep things in control. His instincts told him otherwise as his beast warned him of the lurking danger in the other that he was giving off right now; he had to be careful about the situation.

"I have no interest in a girl from the village that disowned me." Naruto replied sternly, looking the boy in the eyes. "There is no need to kill her as of yet. She will be participating in the Chuunin Exams, so do not kill until then if you will." He looked away now, but it was unfortunate that he looked at the girl's eyes. "Excuse us—"

It seemed to him that Gaara was not satisfied with the arrangements seeing how he released his wrath on Sakura, which was, until Naruto shoved her out of the way of the attack, causing him to be captured in the sands deadly snare for protecting her. Protecting. This forced Gaara's sand to waver at this and clung to his head at the painful memories he was having, allowing Naruto to come to his side once again, whispering something quietly in his ear to keep him calm, and this time it worked ever so slowly. Sakura tried to thank Naruto for keeping her safe from the mysterious attack that had came out of nowhere—but she was completely ignored.

"Naruto, Gaara left right after you and I can't—" It was Kankurou, trying to explain that the youngest sibling went missing, but saw that Naruto was standing next to the missing brother, and was punched in the facing immediately—slamming him into the ground.

"We are the ones doing the work, you can at least do your job." Naruto stated sternly.  
The elder sibling groaned in annoyance. "I didn't know that he left until a few minutes ago."  
"If you have time to daydream, scout the perimeters as I did." He glared at the excuse given.  
"Easy for you to say, you are always right at his side, and now I suddenly have to babysit him!"  
"Shut up," Gaara demanded as he stared at the sibling. "You're annoying." He began to walk away. "Come Naruto."  
"The sooner this exam is over, the better," Naruto stated quietly as he turned to follow the boy. "I'm becoming nauseated."

Kankurou looked at the girl, "I don't know his reasons for being around a weak person like you, but stay away from him." His eyes decided to look her up and down. "You see, he lives for one reason, and one reason alone—something he decided years ago…"  
Hearing him say this made her a little irritated as she began to retort. "What are you even talking about? What reason is that then?"  
"You will find out sooner or later, depending on the choices you make." He smirked in a devilish manner until he heard the blond calling for him, so he spoke one last time toward her. "A bit of advice since Naruto seems rather _interested_ in you, stay away."

When the three ninjas left her sight, a man appeared behind her, which thankfully was just Kakashi—yet he did not seem so happy.

"What he said to you," he started by mentioning Kankurou's words. "Please take it to consideration."  
"That's why you knew Naruto! You were a part of it I bet!" Sakura pointed at him accusingly.  
The man looked away in a sad manner. "Get some rest tonight, okay?"

She stared at him as he too, disappeared.

Now she knew the truth of her new friend.

Causing her to find Sasuke to help her.

It actually did not take her too long to find the black-haired teammate that wore a blue shirt, so she grasped on to his arm as she had done with Naruto, and began asking for his help in order to find out more about Naruto; a boy that was originally born in the village of Konoha. The summary of the boy was what made the other one very interested in this matter as he began changing his course towards the lodges where the _visitors_ out of the country were staying for the Chuunin Exams, but he had no idea what was going to be laid in dormant for them for being so foolish. As they got closer, one of the two could tell how there was a dangerous feeling in the direction they were going—something was not right; something was wrong, and yet here they walked down the street towards the lodges at the feeling began to intense every few feet they went.

"Sakura," Sasuke spoke with in thought, "this might be dangerous; that boy is a lot stronger than us."  
"His name is _Uzumaki Naruto_, Sasuke-kun, and I'm really worried about him." She frowned worriedly.  
He looked around for some ideas. "Let's hide on the roof over there and watch them across the street."  
"Nice plan, as expected from Sasuke-kun!" Sakura cheered as she followed him up on a rooftop to hide.

Even though the female teammate believed that this was a great plan, it truthfully was not.

They watched as the brown-haired male and blond-haired female walk down the street away from the lodge that they have been staying in for a while, meaning that the Team 7 was lucky that they hopped up on the rooftop when they did, so they decided to watch what was happening inside. Both saw Gaara against the wall while grasping his head tightly as if he were in pain while Naruto stood two feet in front of him, neither of their lips were moving unless you considered it as the red-haired male growled with anger—or frustration even, the kids were not sure yet. Together, they watched as the one sitting down had immediately got up and landed a harsh punch against the other's face when it was obvious that he could have easily dodge the attack, it led the redhead to summon his sand around Naruto's lower half; engulfing body agonizingly slow. Their eyes widened in surprise when the captured ninja had reached for a kunai on his right to penetrate his left arm so that blood would rapidly flow down when he lowered his hand, allowing the blood to seep into the sand as if it was a sacrifice for the other; his blood as a sacrifice to what?

Gaara hesitated in killing Naruto now, causing the sand to retreat his from to stand there in loss.

Finally, they started to talk, now Sakura and Sasuke could understand them.

"You're getting too attached to this village, I want to kill everyone right now." The redhead stated as he glared at the other.  
Naruto placed a hand on his shoulder, replying in the same tone. "We made an agreement, Gaara-sama, please remember."  
"How can I forget when you do not trust me to be on my own?" He looked away. "You can kill someone but I can't, it's unfair."  
His blue eyes resisted the urge to roll lazily at this. "I was careless of emotions." It was true, but the other was not happy still.  
"Emotions are what make you weaker than me, yet you are stronger." He glared. "Why have you not killed me to stay alive."

Naruto calmly shifted his hand to Gaara's neck, his emotions gone. "I can, I could, but I will not allow you to be alone. If I were to kill you, I would kill myself." His hand was brushed aside gently by the redhead. "About the girl, she is infatuated with your prey, and besides, there are interesting creatures here." He began walking to the door. "Your exams should be starting soon, Gaara-sama."

"You will stay here." Gaara stated as he grabbed his gourd while walking out the door. "Expect us in a few hours."  
Naruto smirked at this, "try to play nicely, and only kill those that are in your way, killing everyone is no fun in the long run."  
"Make up your mind, Naruto, can I or can I not _**kill**_ others?" It was annoying to hear things change. "Also, what about yourself then?"  
"Both, you can _only_ kill those in your way during the Chuunin Exams, everyone else you can't kill." He smiled. "It sounds fair, right?"  
"What are you going to be doing while I am absent? Will you be killing those that are in your way?" To Gaara, it sounded logical.  
His head shook with disagree. "It seems I was requested to go to the academy for something." To prove it, he gave a smug smile.

The redhead nodded once before leaving the lodge. "Fine, come along then."

* * *

"So he's going to be waiting for you at the lodge?" Kankurou's loud tone was heard when Gaara met up with the two siblings.

Silence was his answer as usual when the question was either beneath his answering or if he was troubled by something that had to do with himself, meaning that no matter what it was about, it was going to be about Naruto in this case of the matter since he was not going to be answering questions. It was not long until that Uchiha Sasuke and two others came with him, one they knew to be Haruno Sakura because their friend asked her name, but they did not know who the other character was with them—suddenly even more rookies began showing up together as a big group. Kankurou's previous annoyed expression turned into a devilish grin when seeing the three small Genin that he met when fetching Naruto yesterday—boy did he want to go over there to beat the senseless crap out of them because he was so bored from waiting for the officials to show up. As a ninja with glasses began to talk with the Konoha rookies about the Chuunin Exams, the black-ringed male turned his attention to a different door when sensing the male with whisker markings, and sure enough, that it was Uzumaki Naruto that entered the room lastly and walked towards his allies.

"N-Naruto, what are you doing here?" Temari asked in complete surprise to his appearance.  
He sighed at the while looking at his now bandaged arm to hide the tattoo. "I have to participate."  
Kankurou chuckled at this. "Come on, you're going to fight too?" He knew he was being loud on purpose.  
"Ah, maybe… everyone seems weak." The blond male looked around. "None of the others seems worthy."

"Naruto-kun!" Ino cheered happily as she hurried to his side. "What are you doing here with us? I thought you—"  
"I was asked to take the written exams for some reason." Naruto tipped his head. "They said to keep quiet about it."  
"So he _was_ telling the truth… how troublesome." Shikamaru groaned as he came over. "I'm Nara Shikamaru by the way."  
"I'm Akimichi Chouji!" The plumped one stated as he munched on some chips. "Sorry about attacking you yesterday buddy."  
"Don't worry about it, you wouldn't have been able to win anyway if I wanted to take you seriously." Naruto smiled at him in return.

"N-Naruto-kun, thank you a-again for finding Akamaru," Hinata tried to join in the crowd.  
His head nodded to her, "you're welcome, had you trained after I left like I suggested?"  
"Of course we did, we're ready to kick butt!" Kiba cheered enthusiastically now.  
"Or are you saying," Shino started, staring at the blond, "that we are still weak?"

Temari looked to Naruto with a raised eyebrow, "just how _many_ weaklings did you run into?"  
"A few of them, but I promised not to kill anyone until necessary." Naruto replied; ignoring Shino.  
"Yeah, well it seems that you pissed off the entire room." Kankurou pointed. "Take a good look now."  
His eyes searched the room, watching everyone stare at him angrily. "Why should I care about the fools?"

"Can I kill them now?" Gaara asked coldly, feeling more irritated with so many talking to Naruto. "They are in my way."

"Wait until the second part of the Chuunin Exams, you may kill them more freely I promise." The Jinchuuriki told the other.  
This caused the blond-haired female of the team to panic. "Naruto, what are you saying all of a sudden? What about—!"  
"Be thankful that he has restrained himself as much as he has recently, even I have the urge to do something dangerous."

Before anyone could continue with their conversations, some ninjas of the Sound Village began striking towards the Konoha ninja with glasses after showing them something with cards, and Kankurou almost stepped into the scene though was stopped by both of the Jinchuuriki. They watched the show of whose horse was bigger before the instructor popped in with a few assistants to help out with the written exams, and so they forced everyone to sit in their seats after being handed a piece of paper to do the exams on in order to either pass or fail. Naruto did not want to do this pathetic exam, so he hurried up by answering all of the questions so he could take a nap with his eyes closed so that the other students can hurry up and copy his answers; he could not believe that they asked him to pretend to be a Genin by coming as a participant. Suddenly, he felt someone entering him—someone was trying to manipulate his body in order to steal his answers, he could hear that Ino girl's voice in his head as she apologized for doing this to him since she needed the answers badly, but she was in for a rude awakening for this. The Kyuubi inside of him roared viciously at the intruder in his domain once catching sight of the female, Ino was now staring death in the face when seeing the nine-tailed fox demon while Naruto walked by the giant monsters side, petting his fur as if he was some giant pet dog.

"Get out," Naruto demanded, and the Kyuubi's massive roar threw the girl out of his body.

Ino left his mind and jumped in her seat as she grasped for her breath of that terrifying moment that she just encountered in the blond-haired boy's mind and body, her entire body was trembling in fear of what she saw in him—never had she encountered something so… monstrous. Naruto sat up straight before slowly turning to look at the girl several rows behind him, and smiled at her as he placed a finger to his smiling lips to motion her to be quiet about what she saw inside of him; this did not go _unseen_ by Ino's teammates Chouji and Shikamaru as they watched them. Sakura looked at Naruto before turning over her shoulder to see that her childhood friend was shivering up a storm in her seat, what on Earth was going on around her, one minute Naruto seemed like he was taking a nap and then he growls lowly before sitting up to look at the girl behind them. After about forty-five minutes of waiting for the tenth question, some of the students were gone while the rest were now threatened if they would like to leave or continue on with the Chuunin Exams, and it irritated Naruto to no end as he watched one after another getting up to leave the room.

"Cowards, if you have a dream to become a great ninja, then stop cowering beneath yourselves and face it head on _**like**_ a ninja."

His words affected all of the remaining ninja much to the instructor's dismay, and he declared that everyone passed.

* * *

It was a shame that things were going so fast for them; a quick meal before going into the damn forest for scrolls, but the problem was that they were stuck in there for five days or less judging by how long it would take them to grab what they needed so they could _leave_ the forest. Still… now they were standing in front of three fools from the Village of Rain, listening to them being so cocky because they were bigger and older, it would seem that no one had ever told the group that size did not matter—it was something that they were going to learn firsthand at least. It was obvious to the Sand Siblings that there was another group that was watching them to see if there was something that they could understand about them, but they kept quiet about it so that they would know just what they were going to be getting themselves into in the future… if they survive.

"Hey kid, you should be more careful when choosing your opponents." The leader of the opposite team spoke. "You're gonna die."

"Stop talking, and let's fight, old man from the Hidden Village of Rain." Gaara replied without care as he intimidated them all.  
Kankurou let him do this as he watched the other team. _'Who has which scroll?'_ He called out, "Hey Gaara, shouldn't we follow them to gather information before picking a fight? If they have the same scroll as us, there's no point for us to be fighting them. It'd be—"  
"It doesn't matter," the younger sibling interrupted him, surprising the enemy. "He said I can kill everyone we encounter."  
_'That's why I don't like being around him,'_ he mentally reminded himself, but added. _'I should have switched spots with Naruto.'_

The leader of the opposite team was obviously annoyed by what they said, and he grasped four umbrellas on his back. "Let's do it." He threw them all in the air before performing hand motions to prepare his attack towards Gaara. "Die kid, Ninpou Jouro Senbon!"

As the needles began to fall, the leader believed that he had his victory against the Sand Siblings , but realized that Gaara was protected by a large quantity of sand, so he continued to throw even more needles—only to realize that it would not work on him.

"A rain of needles, is it?" Gaara glared at the man and he called in a darker tone. "Then I'll make it rain blood."

The sand began to break off and began to drift into the air as Kankurou started to explain the wall of sand that protected the younger brother; telling them how it would protect him whether he wanted it to or not, and that they would not be able to defeat Gaara no matter what they did. It frustrated the leader as he began rushing forth towards the group that had the red-haired boy snag his foot with his sand before engulfing the man's entire body—coincidently having the umbrellas fall to the ground, so he took one and had it open before killing him in the air. This terrified the remaining two teammates whom placed their scroll on the ground as they begged for mercy that was not going to be given to them after he threw the umbrella away to grab them with sand, and killing the two of them a lot faster than when he killed their leader.

"How convenient," Kankurou spoke after picking up the scroll. "It's the Scroll of the Heaven." He turned to them. "Let's head back."  
The young sibling was already looking away from the remains of the bloodshed that he caused, "shut up, I still haven't had enough."  
It was obvious that he knew there were three little sneaky rats scurrying around, and he wanted to kill them to satisfy his craving.  
This was going to get ugly really fast. "Let's stop Gaara, okay?" The middle sibling asked innocently, still holding the scroll.  
Pale green hues turned to him in a threatening manner when hearing this suggestion. "Are you afraid, you coward?"

Now Kankurou was furious at the title he was given. "Gaara, you might be alright, but it's too dangerous for us!" He stated as he came close to the redhead. "We just need _one_ set of scrolls, we don't need anymore." He reached his little brother and stopped in front of him as Gaara brought his arm up a bit, only to be called a slacker before being told to not order him around. So he grabbed onto him angrily. "Cut it out! Why don't you listen to what your older brother says _**once**_ in a while? Doesn't Naruto give orders?"

"I never thought of you two as siblings, and Naruto has nothing to do with it." Gaara replied. "If you get in my way, I will kill you."

Temari watched as Gaara shoved Kankurou away, so she tried to stop this. "G-Gaara, please stop, and don't be so cold. This is your big sister asking you. B-Besides, I'm sure Naruto said to kill only _necessary_ opponents, right?" She watched as he began to summon the sand into the palm of his hand. It was beginning to scare her if he killed another person right now, "Gaara!"

He only made a cork for his gourd. "I know." Gaara replied as he plugged the hole in his gourd.


	5. Chapter 05

**Chapter 05**

**Our Empty Bond**

**- Now –**

They had watched the match with Sasuke, and the match with that bug creep—what was his name, Shino?

Naruto was given permission to watch the matches with his group as an apology for _provoking_ him to attack the Hokage, but it did not matter to him whether he watched or not when he knew who was going to be winning this operation. He was a little irritated on the other hand because Baki had returned with the same information as the last time; it was obviously that the adult did not believe the young Jounin, but what would one expect? The third match was finally decided and Kankurou walked towards the fighting ring without hesitation because he was so eager to fight with his opponent without much restraint. All he did though was show off his skills as a puppeteer while suffocating this opponent for thinking that he had actually broke his neck; what an imbecile he was.

It was just a shame that the match was over so soon since it allowed the female rivalry pair to have their turn.

These psycho girls were far more than just a few minutes than what everyone wanted, the Sand Siblings felt like they wanted to take a nap until it was over, but he only continued to watch in case they needed to learn something for the next round. Naruto on the other hand was enjoying the fair fight; it was nice to watch them do their best for something that they believed in rather than trying to cheat their way around it. Suddenly the blond-haired female cut off her long hair and threw it at her opponent who had already cut her hair during the last exam, now what were they up to? Something about transferring her mind into the other's, it was something that Naruto already encountered during the first exams, and he knew a Genin could even fight it off. Sakura instantly began running around to avoid the technique and Ino yelled out the jutsu, causing them both to freeze, and Ino's body fell to the ground, as a trick. He had seen everything coming and dubbed this as a very smart way to capture before actually using the technique for real now.

"Well, this doesn't seem so fun anymore, I want to see a fair match." Naruto grumbled to himself as he watched the impostor inside Sakura raise her hand to have her give up. "Sakura-sama," he called out loudly to gather the girl's attention. "You've come a long way to get here, and you let this silly little jutsu take the opportunity away from you? If you let her win now, then she'll steal Uchiha!"

"It's no use—" Ino inside Sakura's body froze; inside her, Sakura was now fighting to return over her body, having Ino disengage.

Then they punched each other in the face, causing them _both_ to fall unconscious.

Naruto now became glum at this, "if I knew they were both going to knock each other out, then I would've kept quiet."  
"Why did you even call out to that Konoha brat?" Baki watched him closely to see if he was interested in her.  
"That Ino girl used the technique on me and I wondered if a _normal_ ninja could beat it as well."  
"Who cares now the match is over." Temari rolled her eyes. "Now it's my turn to play."  
"Hey, can you make it interesting? I'm a little bored…" Naruto grumbled.  
She smirked while giving a thumb up to him. "I'll try."

One star, two stars, three stars, game over.

"Liar…" Naruto grumbled as he watched Temari win.  
"There's no way we'd lose here." Kankurou grumbled as well.  
Temari threw her opponent away and a boy caught her quickly.  
"Nice catch," Temari grinned mischievously towards him for it.

It seemed that his name was Rock Lee, and he spoke angrily. "Why did you do that? Is that something you should do to someone who fought her hardest?" He did not flinch when she slammed her large fan against the flooring that was covered in weaponry.  
"Shut up," she demanded angrily, having Naruto somewhat prepared to attack. "Take that piece of trash and leave."  
This angered him, and his teammate Hyuuga Neji called out to him as he started to run at her. "Stop Lee!"  
Lee ran at her quickly and sent one of his stronger kicks in her direction, "Konoha Whirlwind!" But it was blocked. "What!"  
"You're just like how you look; you're so stupid." Her lips lifted with a grin as she saw the anger in his eyes. "Naruto!"  
"What did you say—!" Lee stopped mid sentence when the blond-haired male from her group came to her side.  
Lee's group leader joined them on the match floor to stop things beforehand, "stop Lee!" He called his student off.

"What a waste of my time." Naruto spat in annoyance when the adult knew what he was going to do. "I'll never have fun now."  
"Naruto," Gaara called out to the Jinchuuriki on the bottom floor without any emotion as usually; wanting him to return.  
"Temari, you too, come back here. You won." Kankurou called out with his hands in his pocket and a smirk on his face.  
"Stop dealing with that ugly guy who's with his guardian." The younger sibling added, causing Lee to scowl at them for it.  
"If you're going to be the one that kills him, at _least_ let me beat him senseless first for his disrespect." Naruto smirked.

"Just let it go Lee," Gai stated calmly before talking to the other group. "Gentlemen from the Sand, if I may give you some advice about one thing?" They all looked at him. "He is strong, so you better be prepared for it." This struck a nerve in both Jinchuuriki.

"Never mind, I think I know who I want to kill." Naruto rolled his eyes and looked to the female. "Temari, let's go."

* * *

After three battles, Gaara was becoming very agitated from seeing all of the blood going everywhere, and even angered by Naruto who had cheered for some of the Genin that were fighting. Now it was his turn… he wanted to play… he wanted to _kill_… he came down to the battle floor and waiting for his opponent to come down, which so happened to be the one that he wanted to kill the most. Once finished rambling with that idiotic adult, the fuzzy-browed boy jumped down and went into his fighting position while explaining how happy he was that he could fight him during the preliminary round, but Gaara ignored him. Everyone in the room watched the red-haired male turning to look up at the group he came with, and some of the Genin knew that he was looking at Uzumaki Naruto.

"Is it alright if I kill him," Gaara called out, asking for permission. "I know you wanted your chance as well."  
Naruto shrugged without a care. "Do what you want, Gaara-sama, I can already see you're _interested_."

Despite how Lee told his opponent not to be hasty, he was the first to try hitting him with a kick, but the sand dodged the attack to have him back off to watch as it returned to his gourd. It allowed the bowl cut male to think of a plan to go against him, and so he ran towards him with kicks and punched though everything was being blocked by the sand. Cutting through the sand with a kunai as it began to go after him until there was some space between them, but Gaara still wanted more blood in the arena. As the fool tripped over his feet in the sand, he was almost caught by it until he jumped out of the way and on to the fingers of the statue inside of the building. Gaara watched as the other stalled while the bumbling adult granted him permission to do something, but he did not care, he only wanted to kill this guy now, but tried to be patient about it. Turned out that the idiot had a couple of weights on his legs to train while fighting, but as soon as everyone judged the training tactic, the weight crashed straight through the flooring.

As everyone was caught off guard, Naruto began to growl dangerously as he began walking towards the railing.

"This will be bad."

Instantly Lee disappeared and reappeared countless time, throwing punches and kicks at such a fast rate that it was even catching Gaara off guard as the sand tried to keep up with the attacks, and was eventually able to jump over him to bash his head with a foot. Everyone of the Sand Village was caught off guard by this as well, though Naruto knew that this was going to happen and was _not_ happy about Gaara being struck—in a flash, Gaara was then struck in the face! As everyone cheered Lee on, Kankurou, Temari, and Baki watched as the growling Naruto was slowly getting angry while Gaara was getting even more excited for actually being hit. The three did not know who was going to be more dangerous soon: Gaara was already unstable at the sight of blood and was now out of their reach, or was it Naruto that was becoming very aggressive towards Gaara's opponent. Baki was now dreading in fear of whether or not Gaara and Naruto's _secondary_ _**personalities**_ were being awakened by this fight in such a short time. Just as they were in thought, Lee began speeding around in circles before kicking Gaara in the air, kicking even more than ten times before wrapping his white wraps around him and sending him crashing into the ground. That was, until they realized that it was just a sand clone—probably the only reason why Naruto did not jump into the match to kill Lee for what he had done.

Temari watched as Naruto showed his fangs with a scowl, and she knew what was going to happen. "That's…"  
"There's no doubt about it with those eyes…" Kankurou was now getting scared. "The monster in him awakened too."

Gaara grinned widely as he began attacking Lee without restraint because he was getting pumped up from actually having fight, now with his beast wide awake, he wanted to play with his meal first. Despite the fact that everything was now on Gaara's side in winning, Naruto was having a bad feeling about something, something was not right and he knew it. Lee was continuing to get tossed and thrown around like a rag doll, he obviously had no intention of giving up—even if it was going to be costing his life.

Naruto watched a flicker in Lee's eyes and called out to Gaara, "kill him now!"

Unfortunately, the redhead did not listen to him as he struck him with the sand, only this time the bobbed hair boy dodged it as if he had regained all of his speed back, and it was going to continue getting worse now when Gaara was not even going to listen to what _Naruto_ said. Now Lee was powering himself up as Naruto's words finally sunk into Gaara's bloodthirsty mind, so the redhead knew that he must finish things now with his favorite technique. With the fool now having the third of the eight gates opened within him, he was now going to be more dangerous than before—now the fourth gate was opened before instantly kicking Gaara in the face. It was obvious now that Lee had the advantage as he began knocking Gaara around the arena before opening the fifth gate to finish him with one last attack. He gave his final blow with both a fist and a foot, practically destroying the floor with the landing, but now he had placed himself in danger as his right limbs became damaged while the sand protected Gaara from a deadly fall.

As everyone was still stunned by what happened, Naruto's blue innocent hues were now red as he roared viscously like a monster.

Gaara knew what he meant by the howling roar at him; he had to finish the job or else they would be the losers, and it would be his fault for not listening to Naruto. His hand made the motion to kill his opponent, thankfully the sand was still fast, and so he quickly destroyed Lee's left limbs with the desert coffin technique. He brought the sand forth to finish off the job—and that bumbling idiot of an adult interfered with the attack that now cost Lee to lose the match instantly. The redhead stayed there for the moment to watch them with hatred before remembering his damned past, causing his mind to shatter with pain when recalling what happened to him.

Naruto was then in front of him in a blink of an eye with blood lusting red hues piercing the adult's solid black ones as he growled.

"Why… why did you help him…?" Gaara asked as he tried to stay sane.  
Gai stared at him, "he's an important subordinate that I love."  
"A subordinate he loves?" Temari asked in a puzzled manner.  
Baki watched the four. "Gaara doesn't understand those words."

"I'll kill you both." Naruto bared his fangs as he began to sit like a—  
"Forget it," Gaara stood up, "I quit, we can kill them later Naruto."  
He turned to look at him, "you expect me to listen after that?"  
"Yes, I do." The redhead glared at him, and was hit.

Naruto vanished in a blink of an eye, dodged the sand, and punched him in the face. "You should have killed him when I told you to instead of having me worry about you overexerting yourself!" With this said, Gaara finally decided to stand back up, and glare.

The one-tailed Jinchuuriki suddenly attacked the nine-tailed one as if they were having a dominance challenge while medics were taking Lee out of the area towards the hospital. What surprised everyone was that no one in the Sand group was trying to break up the fight between their own teammates, but why were they not separating them. Out of nowhere, a large hand made of chakra had attacked Gaara and threw him against the wall without mercy, before he yelled angrily with the chakra hand gone.

"Acknowledge what you did," was all Naruto said before leaving the arena.

* * *

"Jeez, where in the world has Naruto been? I can understand him leaving for a few hours, but two weeks?" Kankurou complained at how everything thing was going insane without the blond-haired male to keep things straight. "Well, it's actually no surprise really…"

"Gaara really had him worried since he didn't listen to Naruto," Temari frowned. "Poor Naruto, almost went insane when he tried to wait the match out." She hugged her legs worriedly since she was sitting on the ground. "But Gaara will never apologize for it."  
"I saw him the other day with some Konoha kids," Baki explained to the three Sand Siblings. "I think he was training with them…"  
Kankurou looked at the _group leader_ before turning to Temari with a bored expression. "I guess that's what he does when Gaara abandons him like that." He tilted his head upwards, "going to kids to teach them stuff to keep his mind preoccupied elsewhere."

The sister looked around confusedly. "H-Hey… where did Gaara go?"

* * *

"So there are some Konoha Genin that still want to talk with me?" His voice asked softly with his body leaning against a tree bottom.

"You are very hard to find now, Naruto," a pink-haired female replied as she laced her hands behind herself. "I never thanked you."  
"I haven't done nothing to earn gratitude from you," his eyes closed to keep his mind clear of things that did not matter to him.  
She stuck her tongue out for his modesty. "You cheered for me during the preliminary matches, I would have lost if you didn't help."  
The boy looked up to the sky when thinking of that day. "You deserved a chance to win, so I gave you that opportunity, I guess…"

Naruto and Sakura began to have a small talk with one another, jumping from subject to subject, from the Chuunin Exams to the kids that he was training, and it eventually lead them to talk about personal things. He began explaining his life situation towards the girl as if it were a casual conversation still, but the things that he told her were things she could only dream of in her nightmares. The boy only laughed at this as he stated that the only thing he could do with his life is to continue to keep moving forward by forgetting the bad things that have happened in the past. His focus was on the girl and the conversation so much that neither of them noticed the red-haired boy with black rings surrounding a pair of pale green hues; so the intruder listened.

"Hey Naruto… you weren't _really_ going to kill Lee-san and Gai-sensei, right?" Sakura frowned worriedly as to what his answer is.  
He watched as bird began to fly away. "If Gaara-sama asked it of me, then yes—I would have." He smiled as small chicks flying.  
"I don't understand your relationship with that guy." Her lips pouted as she complained. "He's so cold and doesn't treat you right."

"Gaara-sama is Gaara-sama, I wouldn't want that to change for the world." Naruto smiled as he closed his eyes to think of all the years when they were little tikes. "To protect him with my life seems too arrogant because I would be selfish, and it would not do anything for him if I _did_ die protecting him because he would be alone." He sighed in a content manner despite the heavy thoughts. "I am already being selfish by never leaving his side when I have free time, but we can only go _against_ each other instead of fighting _together_." His eyes slowly opened as he looked at the green grass. "If Gaara-sama were to die, I would die alongside him. However, if I were to die, I think I would turn into a ghost just to stay at his side forever. Ah… I sound like a spoiled child, I'm sorry…"

"I see…" Sakura finally realized it. "You live for Gaara!"  
He grinned when hearing this. "I live _only_ for Gaara-sama."  
"Hn…" A voice cut in to their conversation, his tone ice cold.  
The girl turned to see that it was Gaara, "bye Naruto…"

They watched her leave without a word.

"Your words are meaningless." Gaara stated stubbornly as he stared at the boy sitting on the grass against the tree. "How am I to die when there is no one, other than yourself, that can kill me?" He had his arms crossed as he usually would, and looked away. "How am I to die alongside you if you were to die?" Again, his attention went to the boy, repeating. "Your words are meaningless."

"You might've died during the match if Konoha Genin weren't so weak." The other Jinchuuriki replied with equal stubbornness.  
He snorted at the ridiculous statement. "Impossible," he began explaining why. "If I was close to death, you would've killed him."  
"If you are going to kill someone, kill them! Don't have me near insanity from your childish games!" Naruto was still upset from it.  
"It is my life to gamble, not yours." It was the only thing that he could argue at this point, and the other stood up to look at him.

Naruto placed his hand on Gaara's chest where his heart is, "this is where I hurt right now—it throbs with aches and pains, beating rapidly knowing that _you_ could have been harmed, Gaara-sama." His soft blue hues were weak toward the boy who felt nothing.  
"With you not present, tempts me to kill more." Pale green hues watched the other began to let tears fall down his cheek, and he brushed them away with his thumb because they annoyed him. "It hurts there too, for me." He stated sternly. "It throbs, and aches."  
"The pain has been there since I left, hasn't it?" The blond-haired male watched him nod once, and so it made him go light on the boy who did not understand anything. "Why do you think it hurts there? Does it hurt more or less when I'm present, Gaara-sama?"  
"You betrayed me when you attacked me, you left for two weeks, you have not returned, that is why it hurts." His hand left the boy's face after wiping the tears away. "It has always had more pain when you aren't present, but killing others doesn't make it go away."  
"I betrayed you—I was completely worried about your safety! You _two_ having your fill from playing with your toy, and _we_ were there watching as that fool sudden became strong enough to knock you down!" Naruto released him and began to walk away from him.  
"Even if I was beaten down and attacked, I still came out of the match unharmed, and won." Gaara followed the other Jinchuuriki, not to nag in his ear, but to make sure he would not vanish. "The only one that can do any real damage is you, and you know that."  
"An intruder to our world is much more different than when we fight, Kyuubi subdues Shukaku, we cannot say the same about some fool in a jumpsuit, and not for that Uchiha boy either, even if he's been seriously injured." He growled lowly with annoyance at this.

"The throbs and aches," the redhead stopped in place as he changed the subject. "They hurt more when you're with that girl."

Naruto stopped in order to turn around to look at him, and then sighed softly, "you're hopeless, Gaara-sama."

"Why am I hopeless?" His attention went to him with a pained look. "What does it mean?"

"You're jealous that I am near her." He smiled lightly at the boy.

"Can I kill her then, if I'm… jealous?"

* * *

Despite how fast the two reunited, it only took Gaara's match with Sasuke to break it up again.

Naruto demanded for the one-tailed Jinchuuriki to kill him as quickly as possible, but the beast inside him was already having Gaara go insane with bloodlust, causing him to be wounded. Angered and betrayed, he forced Kankurou and Temari to get him out of the area after he had demanded the signal to be fired with a loud roar so the attack would commence. With everyone doing their part, he transformed into his four-tailed fox cloak to destroy half of the village as he was instructed, until his attention turned towards a loud scream from the pink-haired girl that was miles away. Naruto had _told_ Gaara to stay away from just her, so that foolish girl must have followed Sasuke—and would he have known that Gaara transformed into Shukaku to play with the Konoha civilians.

He roared furiously before having to transform into Kyuubi as well.

Crying… screaming… yelling… everything could be heard easily now.

The blond-haired host charged at the one-tailed demon and lunged on his back as he told him to knock it off, yet he did not listen as he knocked himself out, and so now Naruto had to do the same thing by forcing himself into an unconscious stage for the Kyuubi. A Hell was then created; two monsters caged for war were released to fight one another with different goals due to their hosts—one wanted to destroy everything and have a _blast_ while doing it, and the other wanted to stop this nonsense as the host commanded. In five minutes, Kyuubi smacked the boy awake by dragging Shukaku in the ground like a rag doll, so he watched with glazing red hues as the redhead awoke to see the angry beast who spoke.

"Release the girl from the snare as my host commands, otherwise I will gladly rip your Bijuu to shreds," growled the Kyuubi at the boy connected to the fallen beast. "Are you willing to disappoint Naruto once again, Boy?" His fangs bore dangerously at him.  
"Why must I obey you, you're not Naruto." Gaara stated as his beast turned to sand before collapsing onto the ground heavily.  
The Kyuubi was engulfed in a black orb before shrinking to the floor to allow Naruto full control, but now the host bled dramatically. "Release Sakura-sama please!" He asked with red tinted hues. "I have never asked anything so important from you Gaara-sama!"  
"Why would you betray me for some stupid brat like her." He replied in complaint to the protective side he was seeing from the other who would never do this for someone he only knew for a little while. Gaara laughed. "You're loyalty was a lie then, all this time."

Naruto punched him in the face angrily, and the redhead fell to the floor. "I have always been loyal! I always stay by your side!"  
"You left on several occasions to be with that girl." He spat while lying on the ground, too tired to get back up again.  
His fists tightened at this, "I would kill her in an instant if she caused grief, but you're just being jealous of her!"  
"I am not jealous of anyone who is weaker than us." The redhead stated. "Even you should know that."

"You were jealous that I was sharing my attention with her, over you, but you won't even think about why?" Naruto watched the other turn their attention away. "I was doing what was needed—searching for weaknesses and strength in the walls of this village." He saw how Gaara was not happy about this still. "I would kill everyone in the world for you because _I_ love Gaara-sama." His words seemed to reach the redhead who tensed at these words. "But you could never see the sacrifices, only your selfish desires to kill."

Gaara could only stare at him, but his eyes widened when seeing the stronger Jinchuuriki shaking his head before turning away as if to leave him there, _**alone**_. "Naruto, wait!" He tried to get up, but he was too sore from being thrashed around when they were both in Bijuu form, so he could only yell out. "Where are you going Naruto! Turn around and answer me! Naruto!" Naruto finally stopped.

He did not turn around though as he answered. "I'm going to check on Sakura-sama, after all, you want her to be important to me."  
"I said nothing like that!" The redhead weakly sat up, and watched him leaving. "Fine, I don't want you to ever come back then!"

Hearing these very words come out of Gaara's mouth had him turn around, walk back towards the now seated male, and squatted down in front of him with a serious expression. He demanded Gaara to remember the words that he just said since they were a strict command, which Naruto had no choice but to obey so that he would learn his lesson. The redhead watched as the other pounced him as he would when they were kids, nuzzling his nose with his own, and then looked straight into one another's eyes. Naruto then reminded him of how everything he had done, was always for the one-tailed Jinchuuriki—with the command to never return, he said that he would obey him no matter what.

He still frowned about it though. "Forgive me then, for I won't be able to be at your side any longer." Naruto then vanished again.

Gaara stared at the last place where he saw the other Jinchuuriki walk away, and soon that Uchiha Sasuke came into view, keeping his attention sternly on him before the siblings jumped down to his side. Before his siblings decided to go after him, the youngest of the three told them to stop fighting, and that he wanted to go home… back to the village. They looked at him to see how thrashed he was and that the only one that could do this much damage was Naruto—wait… they looked around to realize that he was not there. Kankurou asked the redhead knew where Naruto was since he was nowhere in sight, yet the only thing Gaara did was cling to the clothing over his beating heart, wanting to rip it out. Sasuke called out to them, telling them how he heard the blond-haired guy saying that he was leaving this one's side, and that he was going to check on Sakura. With this, the Konoha boy left the group alone to make sure the other guy was not going to do any harm to the pink-haired Konoha girl, …though he doubted it anyway.

"I abandoned Naruto," Gaara grimaced as he tried to discontinue their thoughts, "we're going home without… Naruto."

* * *

"There's one of the intruders!" A ninja called out when catching sight of Naruto who was caring a female Konoha Genin. "Everyone, he has a hostage with him—prepare yourselves!" The same person called out, and the Jinchuuriki was surrounded immediately.

Naruto looked at everyone around him while asking patiently for them to merely direct him to the village's hospital; that he would kill them all if they refused to cooperate, but it did not seem that they were too worried about his threat as they lunged towards him as if the girl was not there. He summoned the Kyuubi's coat of chakra to brush the fools out of his way before continuing past the village, gazing round and round for the location of the medical wing, until his eyes came across a man with long silvery-white colored hair, so he decided to approach him in hopes of the man being logical. The boy asked the man to direct him to the hospital or the nearest medical clinic so the Konoha girl could be checked on, yet the man just stared widely at him with surprised eyes before refocusing on the subject presented in his arms. His luck seemed to be changing at this point—until he remembered that he needed to inform the village of the supposed failure, and rumor of the Kazekage being dead.

"I have no time to summon a toad," Naruto growled at the thought of placing matters over a life. "Sakura-sama first, the village last"  
"Oh, you can summon toads, huh? What an interesting boy you are, but you're not from here?" The man decided to follow him.  
His attention was strictly on taking the girl to the hospital, but could multitask. "I was raised here for four years until given away."  
"Sounds like a tough task to deal with." When they arrived, they glared at Naruto suspiciously. "It's alright, he's with me."

Everyone slightly relaxed before taking the girl away from the boy.

"What's your name boy?" The adult finally asked, though he already knew.  
Naruto scoffed at this when knowing the game. "I'm sure you know who I am."  
"Cocky little brat, aren't you, Naruto." He smirked coolly. "I am the Toad Sage—"  
"Jiraiya," blue hues looked up at him. "Should I call you godfather after all this time."

Jiraiya stared at Naruto in surprised for the fact that he knew his true identity.

Naruto saw someone wobbling around the hall with a bowl haircut, and he knew it to be that Rock Lee, "please excuse me, I have something to attend to." Without waiting for a reply, he left the man to walk casually down the hallway to follow the boy to a room, and eventually he knocked on one that he saw the other enter, then entered. "I'm surprised to see you walking, Rock Lee…"

Lee turned to look at him, glaring lightly. "Where is your friend? Surely you wouldn't trail too far away from him."  
"Gaara-sama is returning home, I was brushed aside for protecting Sakura-sama." He answered truthfully.  
"Sakura-san is hurt? I have to go—" The boy cringed as he tried to get back up after just sitting down.  
His lips twitched in a smirk. "She's just fine, but I've brought her here to be check on just in case."  
"Really, that's a relief." Lee sighed a wave of worry off, and smiled at him. "Thank you sir…"  
"You must have seriously fallen for Sakura-sama, you're very protective of her; good."  
His cheeks flushed when hearing this, "of course, I would protect her with my life!"

This angered the Jinchuuriki as he quickly walked over as the door behind him slid open to reveal the injured ninja's team leader, yet Naruto paid no attention to him as he came over and slapped the boy across the face. Gai yelled at him for touching his loving student but it went unheard by the blond-haired male who glared at the stunned fuzzy browed brow sitting on the bed with a bruising cheek. Lee slowly looked up at boy who was probably just a _little_ younger than him, wondering what he had done to be slapped like that—yet he noticed that the boy was very angry all of a sudden.

"So if Sakura-sama returned your feelings, would you still protect her with your life?" Naruto bellowed seriously at the other.  
Lee was still firm on his answer however, and answered. "Yes, I swear that I will always protect her with my life!"  
"Then her life isn't worth protecting." He grabbed the boy's collar of the robe. "If you die, she'd be alone."  
"…" The boy sat there wide eyed when hearing this sort of thing from someone dubbed as the enemy.

Gai stayed back, wanting to know how this conversation would work out between them.

"Fighting, fighting, fighting, eventually you will die, but you can decide _**when**_, once you're strong. Fighting for someone important or someone you love gives you strength as you think of them, but place yourself in their shoes!" Naruto turned slightly as he pointed to the team leader of Lee's group. "He could be severally hurt on a mission, and you want to protect him so badly that you die. How do you think he would feel if he loses you for protecting him? If you want to protect someone, fight side to side with them, understand?"

The two stared at him with surprise to hear such a speech, but the fools then went ballistic at the fabulous words.

If Naruto knew that they were going to flip out and go off the deep end, he would have stayed quiet by slapping him and walking off to who knows where. He left the room as the two starting hugging and sobbing with one another, only to be grabbed by two ANBU members and thrown in jail for questioning of the incident. As if anything could get worse, but it worked for him since he was tired and needed a place to sleep for the night, even though all of his dreams would be about Gaara.

* * *

**Author Note: **I'm letting you know right that there's only one chapter left! I was going to add the Shippuuden to the story, but it gets too complicated.


	6. Chapter 06

Chapter 06

Our Empty Bond

- Now –

"Was I aware of the attack that was coming on Konoha, yes. Did I know that Orochimaru was in it, no, not that I'm aware of at least, but it would explain my own suspicion." Naruto recited the questions followed by the answers in a dull tone. "Was I a part of the invasion, not really, I was sent here to keep Gaara-sama under control if he went insane. If I was here to destroy the village that had placed that damn Kyuubi in me and sent me off to a different village, I believe I would have finished the job by now, so release me."

Unable to keep him in holding with no superior permission, they had no choice but to release him, and so the only thing that they could do is follow the boy around. Much to their dismay, Naruto claimed that he would kill any of them if he caught one of them following him around the large village. It seemed the message caught on as he freely walked around the village, passing by a large estate that said 'Hyuuga' at the front of it—so he started to think about the name. He met someone by that family name so it was most likely a Genin, it finally struck him when he thought of Hyuuga Hinata, and so he decided to check on how she was doing. As he stepped foot on the grounds, a boy attacked him from the side, but he dodged and kicked him into the ground with frustration.

"Does Hyuuga Hinata-sama live here? I would like to know her condition, I'm aware you did severe damage to her." Naruto then crossed his arms as he tried to think of the boy's name, Hyuuga…Neji… was it not. "Oh, now I remember you. You were the only complaining about superiors and inferiors, and even fate." He sighed sadly for having memory of it. "You're just a coward, huh?"

"What—how dare you, you intruder!" Neji yelled, striking at him once more though it was dodged.  
"Someone who claims fate and destiny are those who hide under a rock." He replied with a smirk.  
Pale violet hues glared at him for the comment. "You know nothing about me or my life, Fool!"  
"I don't _want_ to know about it." Naruto grinned. "I might get bored and fall asleep, right?"

"Naruto-kun," a fragile voice called out with surprise, "w-what are you doing here?"  
"Ah, Hinata-sama, I came to check up on you, how are you doing now?"  
Her cheeks flushed, "I-I'm fine, but I thought you left with the others…"  
"Yeah, I was kind of thrown away like trash, so I'll help the village."

Hearing this had allowed the girl to clasp her hands together with a large smile crossing her face, causing the blond-haired boy to stare at her in amazement for seeing a real smile; something that he only saw perhaps once a year, so he smiled back warmly before having to shift out of the way. Neji was still trying to go after Naruto, but the Jinchuuriki continued to just jump out of the way as casually as he could—then an ANBU character decided to drop in unannounced to speak with Naruto regarding issues with the village that the blond had left, saying they needed his immediate attention. Something about Gaara attacking everyone for even the smallest reason if any, and that the village needed him to return as soon as possible. This caused the Jinchuuriki to be a little irritated now as he scratched the back of his head to think of a reply that would not necessarily get him into trouble with the elders that did not care.

"Tell them that I cannot return unless that is what Gaara-sama demands of me." Crossing his arms seemed to be his friend while being in Konoha, yet he continued on any account. "Also, to send Baki-sama out to search for the _real_ Kazekage-sama seeing how the village was tricked," he then thought of something else to add. "Make note that I will send my own letter as soon as I can."

"Naruto-san, the village requests that you return immediately—" the man was interrupted with the glare.  
To scare him, Naruto's blue hues turned red. "You're just a messenger, and I gave my reply, now leave me."  
"Y-Y-Yes sir," that man stumbled on his feet before fleeing the scene to receive mercy by the demon child.  
_'So every adult ninja in this village knows who I am,'_ his hues returned to blue, _'it will be good in the long run.' _

"N-Naruto-kun, are you really going to stay a while to help us?" Hinata called shakily, it seemed she liked the boy now.

"Without being a caged fox, I can run free until I'm captured again." Naruto replied quietly as the winds suddenly picked up a little. "Is there anything that you need help with around here?" Her head shook lightly. "You _are_ strong Hinata-sama, don't let this fool tell you otherwise." He grinned widely at her, irritating the other boy. "Maybe we can train together if you want, it seems fun, right?"

"Hinata-sama is too busy to deal with the likes of you." Neji looked at Hinata with a scowl. "Go inside, he's a bad influence."  
"Scared, are we? Does my presence _threaten_ you for some reason?" He walked over, leaning forward to whisper in his ear. "If you hate your fate so much, change it. If you are bound to responsibility, then runaway. Gain what you do not have that you want."  
Neji quickly shoved him a few feet away from him. "G-Get away from me you freak—!" His neck was grabbed instantly at this.

With red hues, enlarged fangs and whiskers, Naruto questioned darkly. "Who are you calling a freak, you spoiled pompous brat?"

"Naruto-kun!" Kakashi jumped to the scene. "Stop this, otherwise I'll have to take you away!"  
He looked at him angrily. "Don't get cocky because you're older than me, _you_ can't control me."  
_'Without the other Jinchuuriki, he's more like a ticking bomb…'_ The Jounin tried to think a bit fast.  
"Think about it, someone _bound _to fate?" Naruto looked at Neji. "I will put him out of misery quickly."

"N-Naruto-kun, please don't!" Hinata spoke up finally, still fidgeting a bit. Her cry brought the attention of her family to come outside to witness this scene. "N-Naruto-kun, he's a part of my family, please let him go, please don't hurt him." She tried to plead for mercy.

"The one thing I hate more than someone thinking that they know everything," he threw the boy aside while returning to normal, "is a person crying for another." His form turned away, beginning to leave. "It would be best if you thanked Hinata-sama for saving your life." His nose lifted towards the air, smelling a familiar but disgusting scent. "The scent of that imposter." As he took a step, Kakashi stepped in front of him, making him growl. "Get out of my way, I try not to kill those who are in my way with belief of helping."

"I was sent to watch you, after all, you are originally from Konoha." Kakashi turned, hoping he would follow. "Sakura has been asking for you since she woke up to know that you were still in the village." Suddenly, Naruto began snarling. "Naruto-kun?"

Soon, Sasuke appeared, glaring at him from the entrance of the Hyuuga Clan's home, and Kakashi then knew that Naruto could compare the scent of Orochimaru to the seal on Sasuke's neck. It did not take long before Sasuke attacked him without hesitation, but Naruto was in no mood and knocked him unconscious with a single blow to keep him out of the way for a while. The Jinchuuriki then walked away casually towards the hospital where he was being summoned by a girl that he met during his stay, and Kakashi walked behind him with a wise ten feet of distance between them. They were half way there before Naruto stopped to look around sternly—as if there was something in the air that did not feel right, and as if on cue, a building began to collapse on a crowd. The Jounin was about to rush towards the scene to assistant anyone he could to get out of the way, until younger ninja rose his arms up into the air with a loud roar that sent powerful red chakra out. In the shape of two arms, the red chakra caught the falling building as a third source of red chakra in the shape of a tail scooted the large group out of the way for him to set it down slowly.

"Why did you save them?" Kakashi asked quietly. "Your loyalties are not to Konoha."

"I may be a Jinchuuriki, and a ninja of Sunagakure, but a life is a life. These people did nothing to deserve death, they're not ninjas." With this stated, he turned to continue walking towards the hospital, and a large group of kids his age stood in front of him. "Move."

Many of the teams were lined up in front of him, silently stating that he would not trick them or let him pass.

"I saved this damn village, and it's villagers, don't make me change my mind." His attention went towards Ino. "You already know what lurks deep inside my mind, don't you, Ino-sama?" He tucked his hands in his pockets. "Let me ask something, how can the lot of you _Genin_ take down a Sunagakure elite like me?" Good, they seem to acknowledge this. "If you will excuse me, Sakura-sama summoned me." Naruto passed by the group without emotion, but the group turned and followed him to the hospital with Kakashi.

Kakashi warned the group quietly to keep approximately ten feet away from the blond-haired ninja so they would not annoy him since he _has_ been helping in the places he's been passing by. They understood his reasoning for his space, but they were still unsure _even_ with Kakashi following him as well, for whatever reason this was for—they froze. Naruto began snarling at something that they could not see, and Akamaru began whimpering in fear while telling Kiba that something was coming by at a fast rate.

"Sunagakure must not be too happy that you're not returning as demanded." Kakashi stated, almost mused at this.

"Kazekage-sama is dead, Hokage-sama is dead, Gaara-sama has abandoned me, which makes me nothing." Despite his age, Naruto sounded far more mature for it, and he looked at the entire group following him. "I have no one to serve. Nevertheless, what do you know, you serve the Fire Country. Now I have no reason to fight," with this, he summoned a shadow clone that bolted off in a run. "That should take care of any issues Sunagakure gives… now for Sakura-sama." As his clone did, he bolted into a full run.

While they chased him as best as they could.

* * *

His head poked in after knocking on the door. "You summoned for me?" She nodded and asked him to come in. "Of course, Sakura-sama." Naruto did as told and entered inside the room. "How are you feeling after yesterday?" He could hear the others talking.

_"Kakashi-sensei, are you sure it's alright to let that guy go in there to see her __**alone**__?" _It was Shikamaru's, he was certain.  
_"I don't think Naruto-kun would hurt her after all of his efforts of saving her and bringing her here."_ That was definitely the voice of the White Fang's son. _"My guess is that he will be at Sakura's side, to fill in the gap that Gaara-kun would take at this time."  
"When you put it that way, I feel kind of bad for him."_ There was Ino's voice too, they were becoming annoying now.

"Naruto," Sakura called, causing him to stop listening to the group in the hallway. "Why are you still here?"  
"Gaara-sama ordered me to never return." He replied loud enough for the others to hear. "I have been abandoned."  
"W-What? But I thought you were everything to him, you're the only—nh…" She gripped her side in pain.  
"Don't get excited, Sakura-sama." His hand extended, sharing his chakra to blend with her, healing her entire body.  
"H-How did you do that?" The pink-haired girl flexed her limbs. "I feel… almost like brand new, thank you Naruto!"

"And don't thank me either, please." Naruto stood straight, staring outside towards the village. "My orders were to keep Gaara-sama under control, your protection towards that _Uchiha_ disturbed him, and made him unbalanced." His eyes shut softly in thought of this. "I can't say that I wouldn't have killed you myself if the time came to it. This is why I will be leaving Konohagakure tonight."

"W-What? No! I won't let you leave like that!" Sakura stood up immediately.

"Quiet!" He yelled at her, causing her to sit down immediately. "I may have been born in this village, I may be the Fourth Hokage's son, but I do not belong here. Though my orders were to keep Gaara-sama under control, I can't stay in a village where I was used to plot against." Naruto bowed lightly as he walked out. "Hopefully, this will be the last time we meet. Goodbye, Sakura-sama."

"Naruto—wait!" He was out the door, and the others watched him leaving. Sakura rushed to the doorway. "Naruto!"

_"Naruto, Naruto, look!" Gaara showed him a fox that he made out of sand. "You're a fox demon, right? I made it for you!"  
"Oh! Impressive!" He held it since the sand turned to clay to keep it solid. "I'll make something for you too, a tanuki!"  
"Naruto—wait!" Though his voice was heard, Naruto continued running off somewhere else for some reason. "Naruto!"_

The Jinchuuriki stopped in place, and the pink-haired female hugged him from behind. "Why do you like that guy so much!"  
"He and I, we are one in the same." He answered quietly. "We are monsters, kept to destroy the world around us."  
"You don't have to do that anymore!" She held him tightly. "Please, please stay here in Konoha with us!"  
"I am not welcomed by your villagers or comrades, they would like to get rid of me soon."

Suddenly, a group of ninjas were running passed them, claiming that a neighboring village was coming to attack them due to the problems that made Konohagakure defenseless. Naruto did not care about the village or its inhabitants, but Sakura was still holding him, trembling in fear of her home being destroyed and taken over. More ninjas that had been bringing the wounded to the hospital were still passing them in large masses to help at the frontline where they were needed. Sakura was scared—as were the other kids their age, and it annoyed him to no end as he removed her from himself before darting off into a run.

The others followed.

As they neared the frontline where ninjas were prepared to fight, Kakashi had to keep the kids at bay in order to keep them safe from getting hurt. Sakura cried out to Naruto as he was allowed to continue forth, although the Konoha ninjas were not too thrilled to see him, but they watched as he stood fifty feet in front of the large group. Naruto could see the large group in the distance, and so he took one look back towards Sakura and the others before being engulfed into a yellow flame—in a flash, he made a large trench around what was left of the village. It amazed all of them to see such an act, but they all became terrified as Naruto transformed into the greatly feared beast that tried to kill them all once upon a time.

As they were about to flee, Naruto roared at those that were charging towards the damaged village.

Large beasts were summoned to fight him, but he took them out with a wave a chakra.

Suddenly, announcing war did not set well with the intruders that ran away.

The ninjas wanted to cheer about the good news, although, seeing a dangerous threat in front of their eyes did not help them think that it was over with. Suddenly, Naruto in his Kyuubi form came towards the village, lightly pawing at some rubble before shifting it aside where three kids hurried out for air. A group of ninjas hurried to their side to bring them to safety while the others were still terrified as to what he might do—if he was looking for snacks or not.

"Naruto has absolute control in this form, huh?" Kakashi said aloud for the worried others. "His senses are heightened like this."  
Immediately, Sakura knew what he was getting at, and she looked to her once classmates. "Naruto is searching for survivors!"  
Chouji raised a hand. "Then we should help him!" He supersized himself, almost at Naruto's Kyuubi height. "We want to help!"

Naruto looked him before glancing at the others that were now scurrying beneath him to look through the rubble that he was once digging for any that were alive. Though many of the villagers screamed in horror, every ninja was up on building tops, ready to fight with their lives against the beast, but then they saw Chouji at his side. Something caught Naruto's attention—making onlookers tense in worry about what he was about to do, and he then grabbed Sakura in his mouth. Dozens beyond dozens of ninja began hurrying to the scene to attack the beast with everything they had, but watched as the beast set her down on a rocky pile of a demolished building. They stopped to see what he was going to do next until what was left of the building began to fall, which he tried to keep steady with a nose, but he needed to grab the survivors. Chouji's had appeared next to his nose, allowing Sakura and the others jump on his hand to be saved, also giving Naruto the opportunity to dump the falling building backwards. With those out of the way, hundreds of ninja began to attack him with explosives and long distance attacks that only managed to anger him…

Trying to help the village, and this is what he gets in return?

His clawed hand rose to the sky, and roared downward towards the large group of warriors. "Naruto!" He froze at Sakura's voice, beginning to growl darkly as he attempted not to kill them all. "Chouji!" She called for assistance to stop the others from hurting him.

Chouji batted a hand at the ninjas of the village away from Naruto's Kyuubi form so that the beast would not have to kill anyone, and allow everyone to live. Naruto growled angrily at the fact that he actually restrained himself because some stupid girl told him to; was he so Hell-bent on needing someone to obey, that he would listen to her? Sakura ran over to the large beast despite that she was the size of a flea or tick to him, she wanted to tell him that he did not have to attack the ninjas or villagers of Konoha. Kakashi knew better though; Naruto was trained to kill any who opposed him, however, the Jinchuuriki was in so much pain from betrayal.

Standing on his hind legs as his front ones fisted themselves into the air as he roared into the bright blue sky.

* * *

Gaara turned his bloodthirsty hues towards the direction of the Fire Country. '_…Naruto…'_

* * *

_"Gaara-sama!" Naruto called out, running over to the redhead as fast as possible to catch up to the one that stopped to wait. "I finally finished!" The other Jinchuuriki was confused by this. "I worked on it all week!" He revealed a wooden carving of a tanuki since Gaara had given him a fox, and placed it in his hands. "Now Gaara-sama has something that I made too! I hope you like it."_

_The black-ringed Jinchuuriki was amazed when he knew instantly that the whiskered Jinchuuriki had made this with a kunai and a block of wood. He looked over to see how the other have him a thumb-up, unintentionally revealing the cut up and beaten hands that worked hard on the project. His eyes became teary as he looked over to see the fox that he had made for his best friend, but looking at it had only made him burst into tears now—the fox shattered._

_"G-Gaara-sama, what is it!" Naruto panicked, wondering what happened. "What's wrong!"_

_"Naruto worked so hard to make something for me while all I did was mold sand!" The redhead cried while trying to wipe his tears away. "I put my chakra into it so it would be like pottery, and now it shattered too!" He fell to the floor, sobbing as a five year old would when they felt upset. "Your hands are worn out because you worked too much on it! Kazekage has been mad at you too!"_

_The blond-haired male blinked curiously at him before smiling warmly at the crying mess on the floor. "What are you talking about?"  
"I want a kunai and a block of would too!" He sobbed, looking at him now. "I want to make something that you'll really like Naruto!"  
"Dummy, I really liked what you gave me! I like anything that you give me! Their special!" Again, he grinned from ear to ear for him.  
"E-Eh?" His little fists fell to his cheeks, sniffling. "But now it's broken into pieces! I thought really hard on it too! Almost a month!"_

_"Eh, you thought that hard on it? That makes it even __**more**__ special!" Naruto squatted down and wiped his friends face with his sleeve softly. "You wondered what to do, what to make, and whether it would be good enough?" The other nodded, still sniffling. "That alone makes me really happy!" Gaara looked at him as if he had said something amazing. "I'm happy with whatever you make!"_

Naruto finished carving something out of wood with a kunai.

"How many of the ninjas and villagers have to killed today, Gaara-sama?" He whispered quietly as he inspected the small replica of Gaara; someone that was obviously on his mind. "How many have you killed since we have been apart these few weeks?" His eyes turned to the village that was at his right; they had of course thrown him out, but he stayed by for their sake honestly. "If I leave now and Gaara comes, the entire village would be destroyed…" Naruto looked over at the full moon. "What do you want?"

Kakashi appeared on the same branch as him. "You have a good nose."  
"It's good enough to know that you're not the only one here, Kakashi-sama."  
"Ah… you're right." He smiled lightly; glad that Naruto simmered down near him.  
Sakura hopped down in front of him. "We have been really worried about you Naruto."  
"You worry is wasted." The Jinchuuriki snorted quietly. "I knew that I would be thrown out."

"Naruto-kun, there was no way around it at the time after what the Kyuubi did when you were born." The Jounin of Konoha frowned behind his mask. "The villagers—almost everyone, blames you because you carry the Kyuubi within you. I know you know this."  
"I already know what happened that day—that night." Naruto looked to the woodcarving. "No one knows that my mother was being attacked at the moment of my birth by a man, or that my father gave me the Kyuubi's power because he knew that I could handle it."  
"No one has the right to judge you! You were helping our village. You didn't attack the others when they were attacking you!" Sakura was doing her best to defend the newly made best friend that had protected her on a few occasions. "But, why are you still here…?"  
"If I left without hearing from Gaara-sama, and he somehow decided that he wants me back… he'll destroy the village to find me."

Suddenly, there a loud horrid screech in the far off distance.

"…sooner than I thought."

The group turned to look at the village where the scent of blood was becoming strong while people screaming became louder and more frightened. As the ninjas of Konoha started to leave in order to help everyone, they turned to see that Naruto was not going anywhere; after all, he was not allowed to get any closer. They could not afford to waste any time debating on dragging him with them or not, so they left him there to let him think to himself as they helped the villagers. When they arrived… it was already a bloodbath with just one person standing throughout all the dead bodies lying around; it was the redheaded Jinchuuriki. More ninjas started to rush towards him to kill him after what had happened to their Hokage, but Kakashi told everyone to wait for a moment, and they waited cautiously. This earned them Gaara's bloodthirsty gaze—especially Sakura, and he was more than willing to bring his arm up with the motion of his hand to kill her. There was nothing to stop him from getting her out of Naruto's life when said whiskered Jinchuuriki's life belonged solely to him and no one else.

"I'll take you to Naruto!" She stated quickly; they were like magic words. "Just… please stop attacking the village…"

Gaara scowled at her in a deadly manner before placing his hand down to follow her.

Kakashi would follow if he thought necessary, but she knew what she was doing.

Besides, the villagers needed help killing up the mess of even more bodies.

After a five minute walk, Sakura knew that Gaara very angry now.

"If this is your attempt to protect your village, I will kill you and everyone in it." He stated firmly before a wave of awareness hit him. His attention shot up to see the other Jinchuuriki watching from above. "What are you doing up there, Naruto? Come down here." The other obeyed. Pale hues looked him up and down intently. "You lost weight. Did that pathetic village not feed you appropriately during your stay?"

"Gaara-sama, it sounds like you _care_." Naruto looked at him. "What are you doing here?"  
"My demon told me that you were calling out. The thought of another attempting to touch you…"  
"Ah, it hurts here." His hand touched the other male's chest against his heart. "Doesn't it, Gaara-sama."  
He nodded weakling, placing his hand over the other's, holding it tightly. "Naruto… come back with me…"  
"But Gaara-sama said not to come back. Are you changing your mind on allowing me to return suddenly.  
Once again, he nodded. "With you there, I know my wounds will heal." He frowned. "It won't hurt then."

Sakura could not help but smile at the two. "Gaara is most important to Naruto, and Naruto is most important to Gaara, right?" The two males looked at her. "If that's not love, then I don't know what is."

The one-tailed Jinchuuriki raised a hand—

"If you kill her, I won't return." Naruto stated firmly, causing Gaara to stop before he got too far. "Come on, let's go home, you look really tired." He retrieved his hand in order to bring out the wooden carving. "You may not remember, but today is your birthday. So happy birthday, Gaara-sama." His grin shot from ear to ear, but this only brought tears to the other male's eyes. "G-G-Gaara-sama, what is it? What did I do!"

"Just… come home…" He grasped his chest; he was in a lot of pain.  
The blond-haired male smiled at him. "You have to do something for me though."  
Not liking how that sounded, he looked at him. "What is it? Do you want me to kill someone?"  
"No, the opposite." Naruto smiled warmly. "You have to stop killing as a way to exist, Gaara-sama."  
"If I don't kill, then I will be the one killed. Why do you have to make such an impossible demanded?"  
"Was Sakura-sama right? Am I important to you?" This earned him a nod. "That's good enough."  
His exhausted eyes looked at him; without Naruto, he could not sleep at night. "What?"  
"I exist to stay by Gaara-sama's side, because we are one in the same."

Gaara looked at him, frowning for a moment before looking down. "…then, I exist to stay at Naruto's side," he looked away a bit shyly; not understanding the feelings flowing in him. "Since we're the same."  
"Eh?" The other Jinchuuriki mused at this. "Gaara-sama has a new purpose? I'm really, _really_ proud of you!" As if his grin could get any bigger, he added happily. "Are you going to be just as popular as me?"  
"The villagers like you than they do me, I can't be someone they see as a human…" Although hearing that Naruto saying that he was proud of him after so many years, this part, was not exactly possible.

"Gaara-sama, I promise that I will make you so popular, that you'll become Kazekage!"

That Uzumaki Naruto may be an idiot…

Nevertheless, the idiot belonged to him.

* * *

**END.**

Seriously... it gets too complicated going into Shippuuden.

Sorry it's a crappy ending. Someone else can do a sequel.


End file.
